Typhoon Melor

My average of natural disaster experiences jumped to 1 per month this week as typhoon Melor hit Japan. Categorised as a class 1 super typhoon, it was the strongest typhoon in the world when it hit the southern Japanese coast on Wednesday.

The weather had been non-stop rain for days before as the typhoon worked its way north, and on Wednesday night it made its way to Nagano prefecture. I arrive home late after shopping to find an ominous handwritten note pushed through my door. Picture me stood there in the cold and dark evening, the wind whistling around me, and I read "a big typhoon is coming." It actually sent a shiver down my spine.

Throughout the night Melor crossed through Nagano prefecture and close to where I live. I say close, but it could have been a dozen or maybe several dozen miles away, but that didn't stop the wind battering my house for the entirety of the night, rattling my windows and keeping me awake. I could hear various objects scraping down the road outside and bouncing into firmer objects... it was quite eerie actually.

On my way to work yesterday I was swerving to avoid twig, leaves, branches, and at one point a fallen tree. School was cancelled for the students but all teachers weren't so lucky. In the afternoon we were all on leaf-removal duty (with brooms straight from the wicked witch's catalogue), and I joined them until I found a little frog to play with.