Japan braced for double typhoon hit

What Japan can expect from the approach of two tropical storms.

JAPAN FLOOD
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Recent flooding has been the worst in many years for some parts of Japan [Reuters]


Roke is currently situated around 300km to the southeast of Kadena and it is expected to strengthen slightly over the next 24 hours. This strengthening will classify the storm as a typhoon by Sunday evening leading to damaging winds, heavy seas and flooding rain across the south of Japan.

Concerns are heightened by the fact that the storm is very slow moving. It is only travelling at 7kph and it is that slow movement which will allow the storm to continue feeding off the warm waters for longer. This has the effect of intensifying the winds further and producing heavy rain over the same area for an extended period of time.
Current projections suggest that the storm will edge its way along the south coast for a couple of days before clipping eastern Honshu, just the east of Tokyo late on Wednesday evening. We could well be looking at around 4 or 5 days of heavy rain across Japan and it could well be next weekend before the storm finally clears away.
To make matters significantly worse, we currently have Typhoon Sonca following on behind Roke. However, Sonca is moving much more quickly at around 24kph so at least its impact will be short-lived. It is now in the process of overtaking Roke. The outer bands of the storm are expected to briefly clip eastern Honshu later today and then it will quickly move out into the open waters of the northwest Pacific.
Southern and eastern Japan are most at risk here but it is likely that many parts of Japan will suffer flooding during this very wet and windy week ahead.

Source: Al Jazeera