This video — a follow-up to a previous post about strange cloud formations seen over the Sea of Okhotsk last summer — provides a rare close-up bird’s-eye view of cloud streets, which are created when convection currents cut low-lying cumulus into long, clean strips. According to the video narration, these clouds floated just over the sea surface, stood 300 meters tall and stretched for over 100 kilometers.
As hay fever season approaches, Tokyo-based weather forecasting company Weathernews, Inc. is deploying a 200-strong army of beady-eyed, ball-shaped robots nationwide to monitor the pollen situation.
The so-called “Pollen Robots,” which weigh 1 kilogram (2.2 lbs) and measure 30 centimeters (1 ft) across, consist of a monitoring unit housed in a spherical styrofoam shell. A pair of eyes glow 5 different colors — white, blue, green, red and purple — to indicate the level of Japanese cedar and cypress pollen in the air.
Two hundred hay fever sufferers around the country have volunteered to hang the Pollen Robots outside their homes, where they will monitor the air and send minute-by-minute reports over the Internet to Weathernews headquarters in Tokyo. The data will be used to update the company’s online pollen map.
Weathernews is forecasting higher-than-normal pollen counts this spring.
[Source: Asahi]
This photograph, taken June 18 from a Japan Coast Guard aircraft off the northeastern coast of Hokkaido, shows a bird’s-eye view of cloud streets over the Sea of Okhotsk. According to the Sapporo Meteorological Observatory, these low-altitude stratocumulus clouds were rolled into long, distinctive ribbons after becoming trapped in air currents. While it is not uncommon for wind to form such patterns in stratocumulus clouds, photos that clearly show the clouds rolled into strips are rare, says the observatory.
UPDATE: Watch the video.
[Source: Mainichi]
Researchers have developed the next best thing for would-be aurora gazers unable to make the trip to a near-polar location — an aurora generator. The device was developed by Professor Shigeyuki Minami from the Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka City University, who worked with real estate developer Iida Sangyo Co., Ltd.
Beginning August 1, Iida Sangyo plans to fire up the device as the main attraction at its Enoshima Island Spa (”Enospa“), affording visitors the extra luxury of gazing at the aurora while lounging poolside on the second floor.
The aurora is generated within the belly of the machine, where a near-vacuum state is maintained. Electrons collide with oxygen and nitrogen to create colorful light in the same way that naturally occurring auroral light is generated in the earth’s upper atmosphere. One side of the device is made of transparent acrylic resin, allowing viewers to admire the beauty of the artificial aurora contained within. The aurora generator measures 2.2 (H) x 2.8 (W) x 1.4 (D) meters (7 x 9 x 5 feet), though the company claims to have engineered prototypes as large as 3 x 3 meters.
Aurora simulators in the past have relied on techniques such as laser beams that create aurora-like effects, while devices that have relied on electrical discharge in a vacuum have been very small. In addition to being larger and more “real” than previous devices, Iida Sangyo’s device does not simply light up — it emits a shimmering curtain of dynamic multi-hued light consisting of as many as 11 colors.
The company has not revealed exactly what technology is at work in the device.
In an annual rite of spring, scientists in Japan carefully monitor the atmosphere for yellow dust. Also known as Asian dust, yellow sand or yellow wind, yellow dust is a phenomenon in which strong seasonal winds kick up giant clouds of fine Gobi desert sand. The dust clouds travel eastward, affecting air quality in China, Korea and Japan, and occasionally the continental US.
Japan’s Meteorological Research Institute uses a remote sensing technique known as aerosol LIDAR (light detection and ranging) to monitor the status of the atmosphere and measure phenomena such as yellow dust. When weather conditions permit, a green laser beam is shot into the night sky from a small prefab structure belonging to the institute. The laser light is partly backscattered as it strikes particles floating as high as 40 km (25 miles) in the atmosphere, and the strength and timing of the reflected signals allows observers on the ground to analyze the particle content of the air.
On the night of April 17, the Omaezaki weather station in Shizuoka prefecture confirmed the presence of yellow dust in the atmosphere.
[Source: Yomiuri Shimbun]
In a tradition that stretches back 700 years, local farmers in Hanamaki, Iwate prefecture measure the circumference of the frozen waterfall at Taroshi Falls to predict the yield of the year’s rice crop.
According to the conservation group that has kept track of the measurements since 1975, the largest measurement on record is 8 meters, taken in 1978. Warm winters in recent years have caused the ice to break apart, sometimes making it impossible to get an accurate measurement. This year, however, the frozen waterfall measures in at a respectable 5.5 meters, surpassing the 4-meter mark that indicates a plentiful harvest.
Hiroshi Itagaki, 74, head of the conservation group, says, “With all the depressing news about this year’s heavy snow, I hope this can serve as a message of hope for the country.” The conservation group’s mantra is a haiku which translates: “So magnficent — this icicle before us — bulging with promise.”
[Source: Asahi Shimbun]
