Travelinfo.ca: Sep 20: HIGH winds and storm surges from Typhoon Roke will delay and cancel flights at Japanese international airports in Tokyo (Narita and Haneda), Osaka/Kyoto (Kansai) and Nagoya (Centrair) tomorrow. The eye of the storm is due to come on land just south of Osaka around midday on Wednesday, continuing on to the northeast. Tokyo is forecast to be hit by the stronger northeast corner of the storm. Flights at Tokyo Haneda and Narita airports, Osaka/Kyoto Kansai, and Nagoya Centrair are all likely to see schedules changed and disrupted.
Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of people in Japan have been warned to leave their homes as Roke is forecast to bring heavy rain and fears of landslides and flash flooding. On Tuesday authorities in the central city of Nagoya advised 400,000 residents to evacuate because of worries that rivers might burst their banks. Typhoon Roke, packing winds of up to 144 kilometres an hour near its centre, was churning towards southwestern Japan at midday Tuesday and on course to hit the main island of Honshu on Wednesday, the weather agency said. The storm has already dumped 400 millimetres of rain over the past 24 hours on the southern province of Miyazaki. The agency warned of downpours over a wide area of the country on Wednesday, saying as much as 50 millimeters of rain could fall in an hour. Torrential rain will threaten flash flooding and mudslides, even in areas of southern Honshu hard-hit by deadly flooding and slides unleashed by typhoon Talas early in September.