Typhoon Kathleen was a

typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

that approached

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in September

1947 It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country i ...

. Kathleen brought record heavy rain at the time, causing major destruction in the

Kanto region Japanese Kanto is a simplified spelling of , a Japanese word, only omitting the diacritics. In Japan Kantō may refer to: *Kantō Plain *Kantō region * Kantō-kai, organized crime group * Kanto (Pokémon), a geographical region in the ''Pokém ...

Meteorological history

Kathleen struck the

Boso Peninsula Boso may refer to: People * Boso the Elder (c. 800–855), a Frank from the Bosonid dynasty * Boso of Provence (850–887), Frankish nobleman and king * Boso, Margrave of Tuscany (885–936), Burgundian nobleman in Italy * Boso II of Arles (died 96 ...

and the entire Kanto Region in Japan on September 15. Frontal activity, which had been stagnant in the vicinity of Japan due to the typhoon, became active, causing heavy rainfall in the Kanto and Tohoku regions.

Impact

Heavy rains caused the Arakawa River and

Tone River The is a river in the Kantō region of Japan. It is in length (the second longest in Japan after the Shinano River) and has a drainage area of (the largest in Japan). It is nicknamed Bandō Tarō (); ''Bandō'' is an obsolete alias of the ...

to overflow. The areas of

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

Gunma is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Gunma Prefecture has a population of 1,937,626 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of . Gunma Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture and Fukushima Prefecture to t ...

, Saitama, Tochigi, Ibaraki and Chiba suffered severe flood damage. In Gunma and Tochigi prefectures, debris flow and flooding of rivers occurred one after another, resulting in around 2000 deaths in both prefectures. Also, in the Tohoku region, the

Kitakami River The is the fourth largest river in Japan and the largest in the Tōhoku region. It is long and drains an area of . page 793 It flows through mostly rural areas of Iwate Prefecture, Iwate and Miyagi Prefecture, Miyagi Prefectures of Japan, Pr ...

flooded, causing major damage at Ichinoseki City in

Iwate Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku region of Honshu. It is the second-largest Japanese prefecture (behind Hokkaido) at , with a population of 1,165,886 (as of July 1, 2023). Iwate Prefecture borders Aomori Pre ...

. The resulting floods killed at least 1,692 people and left many more missing.

Aftermath

There is a memorial built for the victims of typhoon at Kazo City, Saitama Prefecture.

References

1940s Pacific typhoon seasons Typhoons in Japan 1947 in Japan {{Tropical-cyclone-stub