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This year’s first warm windstorm signifying the arrival of spring blew hard across the Kanto and Hokuriku regions Wednesday, nine days later than last year, the [Japanese] Meteorological Agency said.

This story was the second one on the evening news last night and I couldn`t understand why. (Of course it was in Japanese.) It must have been a slow news day if high winds are in the top three news items I thought. Reading the newspaper today I finally understood. As quoted above from the Japan Times there was a warm windstorm (Haru-Ichiban) on Wednesday with winds of 103.7 kph clocked in Chiba, 100.1 kph in Yokohama and 82.4 kph in Tokyo. It was surprising as the temperature soared from 5 degrees on Tuesday to 17 on Wednesday. This is supposed to signify the start of Spring although the weather at the moment (Thursday) reminds me more of wet and windy England than the sweet cherry blossom of Japanese spring. Click on the link for the full article.