Rain

The rainy season started at the beginning of the month. We've had a few showers and lots of cloudy days, but no real heavy rain until yesterday!

It has been pouring down, almost nonstop, since yesterday morning.

I like the rain, but at the same time, this kind of heavy, persistent rain does make me worry. There are advisories out for floods and landslides. In the other city, I never really worried as the house was nowhere near a river, stream or mountain. Here we are at the foot of a mountain, and just  5 minutes away, the little town floods almost every year. We lived there when the kids were in school; every rainy season, the kids would come home with a map showing which areas to avoid during the rainy season, as the streets flood.

This morning Mikey and I had a trail lesson in the next city. This was the first trail lesson in a couple of years; that's bad!

This was on the way to the city! 

It doesn't look very strong on the video, but it was. The river we are driving along is the Chikugo River. There are large spaces either side of the river that are for flooding. On the opposite side to where we are driving, there are parks and playing fields, which are rather large. The river has been known to flood up to the road! Which is amazing; I wonder how much rain had to fall for that area to flood!

I took a little video on the way back. You can see the fields are flooded, ready for rice planting. Also, visibility was bad. Usually the mountains are visible, but not today!

I took a few photos as well, showing the poor visibility.

It hasn't been too bad here; some places in Japan have had a lot of very heavy rain almost every day since the start of the rainy season. 

Also, another typhoon is just forming off the Philippines. The prediction for now is that it will go toward Okinawa; after that, who knows. I'll keep an eye on it; I know the chances of it hitting here are small, but it's better to be prepared!