The weather in Tokyo can be a little unpredictable in June. Spring still wasn’t that long ago, and sometimes we’ll get a day with a cool breeze or nighttime temperatures low enough that you’ll want a windbreaker, or at least a long-sleeved shirt.
On the other hand, midsummer is just around the corner, and steamy, sweltering days with high humidity and temperatures aren’t at all unusual. On just about any day the cloud layer has the potential to turn into a squall, too.
One thing Tokyo usually doesn’t see at this time of the year, though, is hailstorms.
Depending on what part of Tokyo you were in on June 24, you were in for one of three very different weather scenarios. In the eastern part of the capital, the skies were overcast, but you probably didn’t need to pop open an umbrella at any point during the day. On the south end of town, and in the area just over the prefectural border in Kawasaki and Yokohama, the afternoon saw a sudden downpour with deafening thunderclaps.
And in west Tokyo there was hail.
Tons and tons of hail.
Residents of the Mitaka and Sengawa neighborhoods saw their surroundings suddenly transform into a winter wonderland (or hellhole, depending on how much you’ve been looking forward to summer).
Depending on the exact spot, Twitter users reported drifts of between seven and 50 centimeters (3-20 inches). Hiroshi Hiranuma, who snapped the above photo, said there was so much solid-state precipitation it flooded his neighbor’s garage.
This wasn’t all soft, snow cone-grade slush either, as some reported the hail was so hard that getting pelted by it was genuinely painful.
Unfortunately, the continuing rainfall soon turned the ice into sludge, preventing anything like the awesome snow art Tokyo saw back in winter.
Hopefully everyone who hates hot weather scooped up a couple handfuls of ice to save. The fluke hailstorm seems to have been a one-time-only deal, as the seven-day forecast for Tokyo shows a trend of rising temperatures from here on out.
Source: Hamster Sokuho