Tokyo has recorded 35 consecutive days of rain, the longest streak since records began in 1886, dumping 629mm on the capital between September 1 and late October — nearly three times the normal level. The Japan Meteorological Agency attributes the persistence to an autumn rain front amplified by El Niño warming in the Pacific, a pattern consistent with the agency's own finding that global warming is increasing Japan's long-term precipitation. The immediate economic hit lands on food. Crop damage in agricultural regions near the capital has driven leafy-green prices sharply higher, with lettuce more than doubling to ¥450 per head. This is not a supply-chain disruption caused by distant conflict or trade policy — it is the local climate degrading local agriculture in real time, with price transmission measured in days, not months. Public health costs are accumulating alongside the economic ones. Hiromichi Ito, a clinic director in Tokyo, reports that prolonged rain, low atmospheric pressure, and high humidity are producing headaches, dizziness, and other symptoms across the population. Central Tokyo logged just 45.8 hours of daylight over the period — the second lowest on record — with 14 days of zero sunshine. The mental-health toll, labelled 'rain fatigue' on social media, is real even if difficult to quantify. The broader infrastructure picture is concerning. Typhoon Dujuan killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes in neighbouring Chiba prefecture earlier this month. A 26th typhoon of the season is now tracking toward the Kanto region. Tokyo's rainy season traditionally falls in June; heavy downpours have instead persisted through summer and deep into autumn, compressing what used to be seasonal disruption into a near-continuous state. JMA official Masayuki Kyoda offered the standard caveat that it is difficult to establish a direct link between climate change and any single weather event, while the agency's own recent report concluded that global warming is affecting Japan's weather long-term, including through increased precipitation. The gap between institutional caution and institutional findings is itself a signal: the data is moving faster than the official narrative. The previous record was 33 days, set in 2019. Breaking it by two days in five years is a small increment — but the pattern is one of acceleration, not stability. If El Niño events intensify and autumn rain fronts lengthen as projected, Tokyo faces recurring multi-week disruptions to agriculture, transport, and daily life that the city's current infrastructure was not designed for. The structural question is whether Tokyo — and Japan more broadly — will treat this as a weather anomaly or as the new baseline requiring systemic adaptation in food logistics, urban drainage, mental-health services, and agricultural resilience. The record suggests the latter. The policy response, so far, suggests the former.
