Typhoons

21-06-23 00 / episode: 156

Script

"Typhoons when I came to Japan, I didn't know what a typhoon was except that it was a storm.

And when the typhoon first came, everybody was worried about it.

For me.

I looked outside and I thought that's just a rainstorm.

I couldn't understand much about typhoons partly because I was inland away from the sea.

So the typhoon wasn't at its strongest and all I saw was wind and rain, I guess in the short run, that's basically what a typhoon is.

But let's take a little bit deeper.

Look, a typhoon is a tropical storm and it comes out of the ocean, usually coming up from the equator.

It's not called typhoons everywhere around the world.

Some places call them cyclones that's in the South Pacific and some places call them hurricanes that's over in the Americas.

So when you hear hurricane, wow, people think, yeah, that's a really big storm and very damaging.

That's what a typhoon is.

And some of the typhoons can be really strong and damaging.

So if a typhoon is coming, you better stay inside.

But aside from that, it's a lot of wind and rain.

And so I was kind of when I first came here and experienced the typhoon, I thought that's not much we get this in Canada.

Interesting thing is we don't get typhoons in Canada and we don't really get hurricanes.

I suppose a few come up to Canada, but not many.

Canada is just too far.

North, hurricanes and typhoons and cyclones have to be, uh, well, they start over warm, warm water which is closer to the equator and they can't go too far.

And once they hit land, they peter out, they sort of run out of steam because the water is what's giving it the energy, the heat from the water makes the typhoon keep going.

When it moves over land.

It doesn't get the heat from the water, it disappears.

Typhoons are quite scary when they get really big and powerful.

If a typhoon is coming your way, get inside."