Thunder Storms and Tiny Tummies

Last night saw one of the most spectacular thunderstorms to hit western Tokyo in many a year. "Gaspworthy" as a friend of mine put it. Unusually, it came in from the North and even more unusually, it persevered for several hours, and I don't just mean "peak then a splutter. No, this baby was throwing thunderbolts pretty much the whole time [side note: you can tell how far away the lightening struck by counting the seconds from bolt and blast. Sound, traveling at 343m/s, three seconds is roughly 1km, and yes I know that's an approximation but so is anyone's ability to count seconds. So, under three seconds, you might want to take cover].

One of the interesting things about last night was that, just a few kilometers to the West, it was a Pleasant Valley Sunday, grandma on the porch pouring lemonade, Dorothy playing with Toto in the yard, you get the idea... So why the difference over such a short distance. The reason is called the "Heat Island Effect". Central Tokyo is essentially a large, solid block of concrete that warms throughout the day until it's a convection heater in the afternoon sitting over the city. The interaction of the regular weather and the Heat Island mix, match and throw off spectacular displays to make Poseidon proud. The suburbs are proportionately cooler, less infrastructure, more diffuse air patterns and hence, while we were hunkering down, those to the West, had a (relatively) pleasant, evening.   

A real danger, fairly obviously, is the danger to children (and anyone who doesn't know any better). Children tend to run for cover at the first blast and hide under trees. The downside of this is that trees tend explode when struck, sending shrapnel ground-wards, to exactly where the the children are huddling for comfort and "protection". So Japan came up with a wonderful and, as far as I'm aware, unique solution. They tell children that, if you're caught out in a thunderstorm, the lightening gods will steal your tummy button. Nothing like scaring the heebie jeebies out of children to make them head home as fast as their little feet can carry them...