Photo/Illutration This photo taken from the air on Aug. 14 shows Juntendo Hospital surrounded by floodwaters in Omachi, Saga Prefecture, as the Rokkakugawa river burst its banks due to torrential rain pouring heavily on the Kyushu region that day. (Toshiyuki Hayashi)

The broad range of Japanese expressions for drenching rain suggests our ancestors were intimately familiar with that sort of weather.

"Jin-u," which is written with two kanji characters that stand for "extreme" and "rain," respectively, evokes images of a torrential downpour.

Its homonym, the first kanji of which can mean "swift" as well as "severe," describes a sudden rainstorm like a cloudburst.

With "shin-u," the use of a kanji for "deep," makes one imagine being enclosed inside deep walls of rain.

And the kanji "rin" in "rin-u" denotes "continuous rain" or "long spell of rain," which is what we have been having lately. Many people must feel like screaming, "Enough already!"

It is as if we have been visited by a second "tsuyu" (rainy season) this summer. Moreover, the weather has been so dismal that I am reminded of the expression "abare-zuyu," which means a spell of relatively heavy rains just before the end of tsuyu. This must surprise our ancestors.

Like a guest who has overstayed their welcome, the front continued to cling obstinately to the Japanese archipelago--an atypical outcome for midsummer.

In Nagano Prefecture, a mother and her two children died tragically in a landslide. In Saga Prefecture, the daily lives of people have been thoroughly disrupted by the floodwaters that wouldn't subside.

Heavy rain warning sirens wailed in many communities.

"The equivalent of half the annual rainfall volume has been registered during this past week alone," one weather forecaster reported.

I am afraid of becoming used to hearing such ominous pronouncements.

A report, which everyone must take to heart, was published this month by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

It warned that even if we can achieve the target of preventing the temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees from before the Industrial Revolution, the probability of once-in-a-decade torrential rains occurring will grow 1.5-fold.

And that number will increase to 1.7 times if the temperature rises by 2 degrees, the IPCC report concluded.

The circulation of water on our planet is becoming something entirely different from what it was before the human race started using fossil fuels.

Hollyhocks bloom during tsuyu, but crape myrtles have been "watching over," so to speak, this August’s rain spell.

But those vivid red flowers do not look right in the unremitting rain.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 19

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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