Typhooooooooooo !

It's pretty rare that a typhoon heads more or less straight for Osaka. They usually turn off as they approach land.  People here were all aflutter with dread and anticipation this week and today,  yet all seems to have been sound and fury signifying diddlysquat.  The more people got worked up about it, the more i had to bite my tongue to stop myself acting like a jaded hipster. It's no big deal, people. It'll lose force and die as it crosses land. Osaka will be fine. But people like to be distracted by things like weather.

As far as typhoons are concerned, Osaka is quite well situated, really. Even when the occasional storm makes a determined approach, it inevitably loses most if not all of its force as it passes over Shikoku and/or Awaji-shima. Not that i don't admire the effort. We certainly did get a lot of rain and wind, but that's about all. And i in no way intend to make light of the typhoon overall. It was a big storm and the coast was hit hard, including two deaths and thirteen missing at the last news report i saw.  These are tragedies and should not be ignored. 

Here was the projection Friday afternoon, menacing though slow:

And here was this afternoon (Saturday), greatly diminished and winding down:

On a happier note, it looks like tomorrow's "Picnic in the Park" will go ahead as planned, though we will likely stick to the covered area since the park field will be wet still.  We'll count our blessings and raise a glass.  =)

Addendum (Sept6): The picnic was cancelled.  =(  The typhoon was just moving too damn slowly and so Sunday was rainy and wet all day long.  But we had a nice dinner with friends to make up for it.  Also, canceling a picnic is nothing at all when compared to the damage and loss suffered in Wakayama and Mie (and other places). After receiving over half their annual rainfall in two days, roads and a couple bridges were washed away, houses damaged in landslides and over 50 people are declared dead or missing. Everyone at work (here in Osaka) was really surprised by the amount of damage, considering all we'd gotten here was a lot of rain and some wind.