Wednesday September 9, 2015 Japan's Torrential Rain Measured With IMERG

 Wednesday September 9, 2015  Japan's Torrential Rain Measured With IMERG

Over the past week Japan has experienced extreme rainfall that resulted in flooding, landslides and many injuries. A nearly stationary front that was already moving over Japan caused much of the rain but tropical storm ETAU also interacted with the front and magnified the scale of the deluge. Heavy rainfall led to the evacuation of over one million people. This rainfall analysis from space was generated using NASA's Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) data. It shows rainfall total estimates for Japan during the seven day period from September 2-9, 2015 when Japan was getting drenched. This analysis indicates that much of Japan's main island of Honshu had over 100 mm (almost 4 inches) of rainfall. Extraordinary totals of over 750 mm (29.5 inches) were analyzed near the south-central coast of Honshu near where tropical storm ETAU passed over the island.