Typhoon Tokage produces record eight-story wave in Japan

[indigobusiness]

Typhoon Tokage? What have they been smoking?

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TOKYO (AFP) - Typhoon Tokage produced the biggest wave ever recorded in Japan as its rampaged across the country this week, claiming nearly 80 lives, the government said.


Houses in the small town of Toyooka are flooded, October 22, 2004. As the death toll rose from Japan's deadliest typhoon in two decades, experts warned on Friday that climate change could bring a stormier future. Photo by Kyodo/Reuters


The 24-meter-high (80-foot) wave, the size of an eight-story building, was monitored off the port of Muroto on the southern island of Shikoku on Wednesday, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said.


It was the highest wave recorded in the country since the ministry started monitoring wave heights in 1970.


The previous record was 20 meters in a wave monitored off Miyazaki on the southern island of Kyushu when another typhoon roared by in August.


The ministry said that the average height of waves monitored in a 20-minute period as the typhoon struck on Wednesday was 13.55 meters (45 feet). The waves were recorded by an underwater monitoring point about 1.5 kilometers (one mile) offshore.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1540&e=3&u=/afp/20041023/sc_afp/japan_weather_typhoon

[fugue]

1. It's a Japanese given name

Pronounced "to (long o)-kah-ge (hard g, "e" as in "men").

Literally, "stone dragon child."

Nothing to do with the English "toking."

[indigobusiness]

3. Interesting. Thank you for that.

Of course it doesn't...it was just a joke.

Stone Dragon Child. Beautiful!

[Art_from_Ark]

5. In Japan, it's referred to as Typhoon No. 23

They don't give names to typhoons here-- just numbers. "Tokage" (which means "lizard") must have been the brainchild of someone from the US Weather Bureau.

[goforit]

2. Now that is a Big Wave!!!

[indigobusiness]

4. Surf is definitely

up.

[belab13]

6. Global Warming = More extreme weather

Time to start accelerating development and implementation of alternative energies, People....

Or maybe its in the planets best interest that we give the cockroaches a chance at the helm.

[indigobusiness]

7. The cockroaches are in tall cotton, regardless.

But, I can't help but wonder how they'll evolve given the helm.