Photo/Illutration The expected paths of Typhoons No. 7, 8 and 9 as of noon on July 25 (Captured from the Japan Meteorological Agency’s website)

One summer when I was in junior high school, I drew weather maps for my summer holiday homework.

Every day, I parked myself in front of my radio cassette player and listened intently to NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) Radio’s daily weather report, which would go like, “At Muroto Misaki (Cape Muroto), wind from east-northeast, force 3. Sunny, 1,006 millibars, 29 degrees.”

I also strained to catch data from Vladivostok, Beijing and other places overseas, writing it all down on a blank map. That done, I would take a breather, and then start drawing isobars.

That’s when a clean pattern, made up of the high-pressure system and fronts, began to take shape in the sky over Japan.

It was fun to see for myself how the pattern gradually changed from day to day.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the commencement of meteorological observations by the Meiji government (1868-1912).

Initially, observations were conducted three times a day in Tokyo. And that was only to check the temperature and rainfall and not much else, as I understand it.

A few years later, Japan’s first weather map was produced by Erwin Knipping (1844-1922), a Prussian-born mariner hired by the government as an adviser.

From that time, it became a long-established custom to draw every weather map accurately by hand.

But with the development of computerized weather forecasting, radio weather reports have been replaced by an automated voice system for a while now.

How many people, if any, are still drawing their own weather maps nowadays?

Personally, I don’t want to forget the fascination the activity held over me when I was a teenager.

Every map I completed had the power to expand my imagination, as if the wind blowing outside the window could flow to a foreign town the next day.

A poem by Tadanori Nadamoto goes to the effect, “Listening to weather reports/ With my eyes closed/ The light of Vladivostok/ The wind of Yonaguni.”

For the first time in many years, I listened to the radio weather report yesterday.

A weather map issued by the Japan Meteorological Agency showed two typhoons, looking like a pair of googly eyeballs, in the southern sea.

I pray for the safety of the islands in the immediate vicinity.

—The Asahi Shimbun, July 29

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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.