{"id":2050,"date":"2012-07-19T18:41:42","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T09:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-07-19\/2050"},"modified":"2012-07-19T18:41:42","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T09:41:42","slug":"kyotos-quasi-annual-flash-flood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-07-19\/2050","title":{"rendered":"Kyoto’s Quasi-Annual Flash Flood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

It's been a long week as my boy had surgery to repair a broken<\/span> finger\n(all appears to have gone well), so I'll try to get back in the groove with\na rambling<\/span> post on a flash<\/span> flood in Kyoto last weekend. There were about two\nhours of intense rain in the middle of the night...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nIntense Rain<\/span>\nKyoto is the black dot to the lower-right of center\n<\/div>\n\n

A couple of hours later, the accumulated water had washed down through the mountains to Kyoto...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nQuite a Bit<\/span> Higher Than Normal<\/span>\nprefectural water-control camera on the Kamo River at the Sanjo Bridge\n<\/div>\n\n

To give an idea for how much water is rushing by, this is the same\nbridge seen in this photo from an earlier post<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Voigtl\u00e4nder 125mm f\/2.5 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>400 sec, f<\/span>\/2.5, ISO 280 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nLow Water<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The elevation descends fairly quickly as the river flows from north to south, so the water is positively rushing by at breakneck speed.\nThis quick flow generally clears things out quickly, but 3½ inches\/hour of rain for a couple<\/span> of hours will fill things up quickly.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2800 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nPretty Zippy Flow<\/span>\na few hours after the peak\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

I had this same area on my blog for the same reason two\nyears ago, in “Kyoto Kamo River Flooding:\nSanjo<\/a>”. This time I didn't<\/span> know about it until after the fact, but this one seems to have been worse.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2800 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nRemnants<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

The monument thing in the foreground had an engraved faceplate ripped\noff by the current. I happen<\/span> to have snapped a shot<\/span> of the area a few<\/span> days\nearlier, where you can see a couple<\/span> of people sitting in front of the\nmonument to the far right of the frame...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 11400 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nEarlier<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

(You can also see it, still intact, during the previous flood here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n

If you ever visit Kyoto and walk along the nice paths on either side of\nthe river, you'll see these monument things every so often, with maps\nshowing where you can enter\/exit the paths. For reference, I happened<\/span> to have some\nsnapshots of other markers at other times...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>640 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>4000 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

I walked along the river for quite a distance<\/span> during the walk that produced\n“Informal GPS Logger Test: iPhone 4s GPS is Shockingly Good<\/a>”,\nwhen I also<\/span> snapped those two shots above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, the rapid rise and fall left quite a bit<\/span> of debris...<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1000 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>730 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>1700 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\niPhone 4S at an effective 35mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>2500 sec, f<\/span>\/2.4, ISO 64 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nNewly-Laid Sod<\/span>\nthis area just had sod laid earlier this month\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D4 + Nikkor 85mm f\/1.4 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>80 sec, f<\/span>\/1.4, ISO 10000 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nA Few<\/span> Days Earlier<\/span>\n<\/div>\n\n

One thing Japan Inc. has never figured out is how to make a nice<\/span> lawn,\nso the flood merely hastened what would naturally happen. The brown<\/span> area\nbeyond the newly-laid sod in the photo above was new itself about a year<\/span> or\nso ago (you can see it on\nthis post<\/a>) and is already a total<\/span> loss. I don't<\/span> know why they ever\nbother. But I noticed<\/span> someone placing cones when I went<\/span> by yesterday, so I\nsuppose<\/span> they'll give it another try.<\/p>\n\n

This “flooding” is nothing compared to what was happening in south-west\nJapan during the same period, with mudslides and lots of deaths, but the\nsame rain would have been much worse here in years past. Sometime in the\nmid 1900s the river was drastically widened and deepened, creating a\nman<\/span>-made flood-control channel.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a>\nNikon D700 + Nikkor 300mm f\/2 — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>3200 sec, f<\/span>\/2, ISO 200 —\nmap & image data<\/a> — nearby photos<\/a><\/span>\nSculpted<\/span>\na bit up river, taken on my Kyoto Marathon outing<\/a> in March\n<\/div>\n\n

Prior to that the shallow river would flood regularly, causing havoc for\nthe folks who lived in the otherwise-prime real-estate. They were probably\nprepared for the common flood like this, but one would suppose that a\nbigger<\/span> flood every 10 or 20 years, especially in the middle of the night\nlike this one, would be a real<\/span> disaster.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It's been a long week as my boy had surgery to repair a broken finger (all appears to have gone well), so I'll try to get back in the groove with a rambling post on a flash flood in Kyoto last weekend. There were about two hours of intense rain in the middle of the night...<\/p>

A couple of hours later, the accumulated water had washed down through the mountains to Kyoto...<\/p>

To give an idea for how much water is rushing by, this is the same bridge seen in this photo from an earlier post:<\/p>

The elevation descends fairly [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2050\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}