Yagi

We may experience our first typhoon this weekend. How exciting!

TOKYO (Reuters) - A powerful typhoon packing winds of up to 198 km per hour was moving slowly towards Japan on Friday and forecasters said it could brush past Tokyo over the weekend before veering back into the Pacific.

Typhoon Yagi, whose name means "goat" in Japanese, is a Category 5 super typhoon, according to British-based Web site Tropical Storm Risk (www.tropicalstormrisk.com).

At 9:00 a.m. on Friday (0000 GMT) the storm was about 400 km south-southwest of the remote island of Chichijima, about 1,000 km south of Tokyo, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

About 2,000 people live on the subtropical resort island.

Yagi was moving northwest at 30 kph and was forecast to weaken before coming within a few hundred kilometres of the densely populated Tokyo region over the weekend, probably bringing high winds, but little rain to the area, the agency said.

We're pretty far inland, so I'm not really worried about it. Could be a gusty weekend, tho.