Monitoring of cyclonic activity
As rapidly developing cyclones around Japan can bring strong wind and heavy rain, satellite imagery highlighting characteristic cloud areas and cyclonic development is used for related monitoring.
An instance of such observation is outlined below.
True Color Reproduction(TCR) imagery animation based on Himawari-8 observation conducted at 10-minute intervals. [MP4, 7.8 MB]
At 00 UTC on 17 April 2016, a developing cyclone (978 hPa) was observed moving east-northeastward over the Sea of Japan. While cloud corresponding to its warm front is not prominent in satellite imagery, cloud corresponding to its cold front is clearly seen crossing mainland Japan and stretching farther toward the vicinity of Taiwan. This cyclone brought intense rainfall of 60 mm an hour in Aki, Kochi Prefecture (in the western area of the Pacific side of Japan) and strong winds with a maximum instantaneous speed of 35.7 m/s in Wajima on the Sea of Japan coast.