1. Meteorological Satellite Imagery

Between July 19, 2003 and July 20, 2003, a number of landslides and flash floods occurred in Kyushu Island and other areas due to torrential rain. Experts say that one of the reasons we had so much rain is the "tapering cloud", which is a cloud with a tapering shape like a carrot. Here we follow the evolution of cloud shapes during that period in the animation.

The following animations are created from meteorological satellite images (Infrared image : channel 1) overlayed on the Blue Marble data. The scale is 1600 km in width and 1200km in height. The center of the image is located at Minamata city, Kumamoto Prefecture, where the loss was the largest among others.

2003-07-18 16:00 JST -- 2003-07-20 15:00 JST

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