Photo/Illutration Despite a slight drizzle, a family heads to a swimming pool at the Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward on July 28. The rainy season has yet to end in Tokyo and many other parts of Japan. (Shinnosuke Ito)

The rainy season for southern areas of the main island of Kyushu was declared officially over on July 28, or 14 days later than in a normal year.

But for the Shikoku, Chugoku, Kinki, Tokai and Kanto-Koshin regions, including the Tokyo metropolitan area, the wet misery will likely extend until August, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

It said the end of the rainy season for those regions has been delayed by seven to 10 days, which could possibly set a postwar record.

Amami-Oshima in Kagoshima Prefecture and Okinawa Prefecture are the only areas of the country free from the grip of the seasonal wet weather, along with southern parts of Kyushu, whose end of the rainy season was the third latest since 1951, when the agency began collecting data.

The prolonged rainy season inevitably meant shorter hours of sunshine, raising the prices of vegetables due to slowed growth.

Over 20 days through July 27, the duration of sunshine was only 29 percent of that during the same period of a normal year. The figure was 35 percent in Shizuoka, 34 percent in Nagano and 42 percent in Sendai.

The Kanto-Koshin region entered the rainy season on June 11, according to the agency. Under normal circumstances, the high-pressure system in the Pacific Ocean usually starts building in mid-July, driving the seasonal rainy front over the Japanese archipelago to the north.

But there are no signs of that happening yet.

Instead, the high-pressure system in the Pacific expanded to the South China Sea and the sea east of the Philippines, preventing cumulonimbus clouds from growing to create a typhoon.

As a result, no typhoons have been generated in July so far. If the trend continues through the end of this month, it would be the first time for no typhoons to strike in July since 1951.

According to the agency’s forecast, the high-pressure system in the Pacific is finally approaching the Japanese archipelago this week, and will likely spell the end of the rainy season for all of western Japan by July 30.

However, eastern Japan will almost certainly have to put up with the rainy season until August, the agency said.

There have only been four times for the rainy season to end in the Kanto-Koshin region in August since 1951, except for 1993, when the agency could not determine when it finished.

Aug. 4, 1982, marked the last time the rainy season ended so late. In the other three years, it ended earlier than Aug. 4.

The region may set a new record this year, depending on the movement of the rain front.

A prolonged spell of rainy days and little sunshine means consumers are having to pay more for vegetables due to hindered growth.

The farm ministry reported that prices of many vegetables had risen since mid-July.

The wholesale prices of key 14 vegetables are higher than those of last year at the Tokyo Metropolitan Wholesale Market.

For example, prices for potatoes rose by 238 percent, carrots by 218 percent, eggplants by 168 percent, heads of lettuce by 165 percent and Chinese cabbages by 160 percent.

Potatoes and carrots fetched higher wholesale prices even before a spike this month due to scant rainfall in the spring.

But wholesale prices of leafy vegetables have also begun to soar.

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