Climate of Japan

It is a country with high humidity and rainy, it has a temperate climate with 4 different well-defined seasons, thanks to the distance with respect to the equator. Anyway the climate of the North is slightly tempered cold (Hokkaidō) with strong summers and heavy snowfall in the winter, the center of the country is hot, humid summers and winters are short and slightly subtropical South (Kyūshū) with long, hot, humid summers and short, mild winters. The climate is sometimes affected by the seasonal winds caused by the cyclone and anticyclone centres that form on the continent and in the Pacific (Hawaiian cyclone or anticyclone), generating winds from the continent to the Pacific in winter and from the Pacific to the continent in summer.

View of the Hanami in Tokyo.

There are two primary factors in the climatological influence: its proximity to the Asian continent and ocean currents. The climate from June to September is hot and humid tropical wind currents that come from the Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asia. These currents precipitate large amounts of water at landfall, so summer is a time of significant rainfall, which begin in early June and lasts about a month. Followed by a period of heat and at the beginning of August until early September, a period of typhoons, which pass through Japan 5 or 6 of them and come to produce significant damage. The annual precipitation of rains is 100 to 200 centimeters, but between 70 and 80 percent of these are concentrated in June and September.

Traditional Japanese garden in Kobe.

In winter, the centers of high pressure of the Siberian area and the centers of low pressure in the North of the Pacific Ocean, generate cold winds that pass through Japan from West to East, producing, significant snowfall in the Japanese coast of the Japan Sea. As the winds collide against the mountain ranges in the Centre, high altitudes eventually precipitate the moisture from these winds in the form of snow and going through the Pacific coast of the country arrive without carry significant amounts of moisture, so they are not the main factor of snowfall on the Pacific coast. This also causes on this coast, winter weather is dry and days without clouds, contrary to winter on the West Coast.

View of the headquarters of the Bank of Japan.

There are two ocean currents that affect the climate model: the warm Kuroshio current and the cold Oyashio Current. The Kuroshio current flows across the Pacific from Taiwan and passes through Japan pretty North of Tokyo, is a current that carries much heat to the coast this.

Mount Fuji, the flowers of cherry and the shinkansen in the foreground. All three are iconic of Japan.

Source: Climate of Japan