Tapah bears down on South Korea, Japan with flooding rainfall and damaging winds

As the tropics around the world remain active, South Korea and Japan were hit by Tropical Storm Tapah that brought flooding rain and damaging winds.

Tapah began as a tropical depression that has meandered south of Japan's Ryukyu Islands last week. It then intensified into a typhoon early Saturday. As of Sunday morning, Tapah has since been downgraded to a severe tropical storm.

Through the first half of the weekend, the Ryukyu Islands faced the bulk of Tapah's impacts. Winds gusted to 130 km/h (80 mph) in Okinawa during the pre-dawn hours on Saturday morning.

During the second half of the weekend, Tapah brought damaging wind and flooding rain to South Korea and southwestern Japan.

As of early Sunday night, local time, The Mainichi reported that there have been 21 injuries in Japan due to Tapah.

Widespread rainfall of 100-150 mm (4-6 inches) has been reported across South Korea. As much as 275 mm (10.8 inches) fell in Chiju, which lead to flash flooding on the island.

The strongest wind has been reported across southwest Japan where gusts have reached 138 km/h (85 mph) in Seto. Various other areas in southern Japan have reported wind gusts in excess of 110 km/h (68 mph).

As reported by NHK News Web, there were about 147,000 blackouts across Kyushu, as of 11:00 p.m. Sunday local time.

Along the southern coast of South Korea, a wind gust to 114 km/h (71 mph) was measured in Kimae.

While the heaviest of the rain fell during the day on Sunday, bands of tropical downpours will continue to move into southern Kyushu and Honshu through Sunday night. These localized downpours may lead to flash flooding and potentially mudslides in the mountainous terrain.

Conditions across South Korea and southern Japan will continue to improve into Monday.

Tapah is anticipated to be over the waters of the East Sea by early on Monday. The most likely scenario is for the cyclone to curve northeast and approach the island of Hokkaido Monday evening and night.

While Tapah is forecast to be a weakening tropical storm by this time, there can still be locally damaging wind gusts to 80-115 km/h (50-71 mph) across northwest Honshu. Generally 25-75 mm (1-3 inches) of rain will fall across Hokkaido and northern Honshu.

While there can be isolated flooding and wind damage, impacts will be mush less than what occurred across southern Japan and South Korea.

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