these are images from central hokkaido. the influx of cold air caused the city's temperature to drop to 1.6 degrees. the lowest so far this autumn. six degrees lower than average this year. the first frost has been observed 11 days earlier than average in some inland areas. temperatures have fallen below zero for the first time this autumn. americas, where we're seeing some snow. autumn is now already looking like winter. we're seeing very heavy rainfall also. up to about 200 millimeters is possible ahead of that system. cold air pulling down from canada, will be making things quite white. now, towards the central plains, this is the battle zone of severe thunderstorms due to the cold air mass coming in from the north and clashing with the southerly very warm air. thunderstorms are capable of unleashing some tornadic activities as well. looking fine and nice and dry across chicago. 27 degrees. now, to europe. we have a formation moving into western europe. this is likely to bring severe thunderstorms across the bering penin

we have this report. # ♪ >> reporter: this is an ethnic inu from hokkaido. she teaches basic inu words and expresses to children in her community but still, she feels she's not doing enough to preserve her culture. >> translator: when i was a little girl, my grandmother would speak to me in inu. she took me to traditional ceremonies and taught me the songs and dances. i realize now that she wanted to pass on those things to me. i was so stupid not to have realized it at the time. >> reporter: she and others visited new zealand this year to learn from the people. an ethnic minority with a similar history. british colonizers developed in new zealand in the 19th century and they forced them to live like westerners and the language almost disappeared but the indigenous leaders came out with a message of preserving it. like inu, they have a home and the method involving immersing students in the language. instead of books or papers or pens, teachers use colored rods. students learn words by forming shapes with the rods or describing their properties. the method w

originally from the island of hokkaido. the government took over their land in the late 19th century and banned them from practicing traditional rituals and speaking their language. but the ainu fought to keep their heritage alive. they've had to work especially hard to preserve their language. it has no written form and only a halfful of people speak it. some in the community have turned to indigenous people overseas for help. yoshiko nakata explains. ♪ >> reporter: maki is an ethnic ainu from hokkaido. she teaches basic ainu words and expressions to children in her community. but, still, she feels she's not doing enough to preserve her culture. >> translator: when i was a little girl, my grandmother would speak to me in ainu. she took me to traditional ceremonies and taught me the songs and dances. i realize now that she wanted to pass on those things to me. i was so stupid not to have realized it at the time. >> reporter: she and other ainu visited new zealand this year to learn from the maori peoe. an ethnic minority

minus 1 degree in parts of hokkaido. crisp and sunny weather by this high pressure system in the korean peninsula. if you are living in southwestern china, you'd be jealous of the nice weather in the north. will face another wet day. we have a tropical depression over the south which should become a tropical storm within the next 24 hours and will linger in the area for the next several days. drenching rain of about 200 millimeters or more across the western parts of the philippines for the next three days or so and the circulation is on the parts of -- in vietnam, more than 100 millimeter is likely. so, flooding, landslides, all are going to be a big concern. temperatures are going to be a little bit chill you're sign across the area at 22 degrees with rainy weather. but seasonal temperatures across the north including beijing, seoul and tokyo. across the americas a low pressure system moves across the northwest dropping heavy rainfall and a cold front after affecting manitoba and nevada. heavy rain and damaging winds w

they're originally from the northern island of hokkaido. the japanese government took over their land in the late 19th century. it banned them from practicing traditional rituals and speaking their language. but they've fought to keep their heritage alive. they had to work especially hard to preserve their language. >>> it has no written form and only a handful of people speak it. some in the community have turned to indigenous people overseas for help. >> reporter: this is an ethnic ainu. she feels she's not doing enough to preserve her culture. >> translator: when i was a little girl, my grandmother would speak to me in ainu. she took me to traditional ceremonies and taught me songs and dances. i realize now she wanted to pass on those things to me. i was so stupid not to have realized it at the time. >> reporter: p she and other ainu visited new zealand earlier this year to learn from the malorie people, an ethnic minority with a similar history. british colonizers in new zealand in the 19th century. it forced them to live like the rest

. >> reporter: fall brings the rice harvest to hokkaido. work is going smoothly, but there's to driver in sight. a satellite controls the harvester to centimeter accuracy. about 36,000 kilometers above earth, the michibiki satellite orbits as a part of japan's first homegrown satellite positioning system. most countries rely on the global positioning system or gps. but some factors cause gps data to lose its accuracy. on its journey to ground receivers. two of these are the shift of the satellites. out of their orbits. and delay in the signal caused by the ionosphere. they can be o by as much as ten meters. the mitchibiki system sends collection data and reduces the error to centimeters. mitchibiki's system achieved positioning at the level of accuracy. the key was producing the most accurate correction data as possible. this is the heart of the system. at japan aerospace exploration agency. correction data is being collected and sent to the michibiki satellite. unique algorithm is used to calculate factors that influence the gps accuracy.

we are seeing a front move through hokkaido and northern hons honshu. it is rather warm down here and beijing at 27. ulan bator, and you're the big changer out here. 17 here on thursday and we'll see another cold front coming out of siberia, one of the cold surges of the season. by saturday morning you will be below the freezing mark as far as temperatures. so it will cool off quite considerably out there. also looking at snow in the alpine regions and upper level low is bringing unstable weather from germany toward the northern balkans. much of italy, you are under thunderstorm watches or heavy rain advisories throughout the day on tuesday into wednesday. farther toward the west, if you're in the uk, take a look at dublin and right now it's 17 going into 13 and london staying in the high teens throughout the workweek. here's your extended forecast. >>> that's "newsline" for this hour. i'm gene otani in tokyo. . >>> from the four winds and the scent of the earth come the color of the seasons. exploring the four seasons of japan. a forest that has been p

if you look at hokkaido it's been relatively cooler with the high pressure ahead. right around 34 degrees and getting on the chilly side, and similar conditions there in western europe. the cold air spilling in, with the cold front which indeed has been bringing some unstable weather out here across the low countries. wind advisories in germany up to 120 kilometers per hour possible and put that in perspective and that is similar winds that we're seeing with our typhoon near the philippines. so very unstable conditions down here and if you want to go somewhere calm and relatively warm. madrid with a high of 28 on thursday. that's a look at your weather, here a here's the extended forecast. >> a cyclist on a high-tech bicycle has set a world record. he took his bike to more than 133 kilometers per hour. dutch cyclist sebastian boair set the mark at an international event for recompany bent bicycles in the u.s. state of nevada. riders of those kinds o bikes sit in a reclining position. the shape allows them to slip through the the air. students from two dutch univers

the remnant low over east of hokkaido is now moving away from land masses. so the conditions are much better. we're seeing clear skies across much of the country today. however, it did the devastation -- it brought torrential amounts of rainfall. and in fact, possibly three tornadoes swept through two regions, and three prefectures emergency warnings were in place, which means people were forced to evacuate. it's apparent that so much rain has fallen across much of the central regions. more than 500 millimeters have been found in the course of 48 hours. a lot of these areas seeing more than 450 millimeters, and the flooding situation still will not be aalleviated. even though the clear skies are found across japan. the rough sea conditions will be continuing. and the flooding and land slide risks will be remaining in place across the country. after one storm, there's another storm that formed over east of the philippines here across continental asia, which is rabbit in japanese. it's not going to be a cute one as it will be moving over toward the northern ph

you'll still see showers and cloudy skies from kanto and pushing up toward hokkaido. however, the storm to watch is further towards the south. at the moment it's still a tropical depression, but it is expected to become a major storm. you can see it just peeping up into the screen here. this one is headed for okinawa, and later on mainland japan, east of the philippines where it's situated right now. this is the one to watch, and it's probably going to be bringing some pretty bad weather to japan over the weekend. i'll give you a quick look at your temperatures. i would like to move on into the americas, because we have another big storm to talk about there. in the northwest, your's ryou'r being pounded by a winter storm. look at all of this wind here. did i say wind before? i meant snow. expanding all the way across vancouver, b.c., down into montana, through idaho, into wisconsin as well. and you are just going to be seeing that heavy snow as well as heavy rain, particularly for oregon, and into washington state, too. that is really going to be bringing the potentia

in the line of thundershowers, from this area through the korean peninsula, up into the hokkaido area. now, across the americas, we're looking at lots of cool air coming in from the pacific. see dotted clouds right here. this indicates that cooler air is traveling over the warm waters, gusty winds and strong rain as well as chilly conditions across the pacific northwest as well as british columbia. the cold air is expected to reach the northern rockies on wednesday. as it does so, significant snowfall is likely, probably over 35 centimeters anywhere above 1,500 meters. meanwhile, lots of high pressure system across this area and also across great lakes region. thus it's causing frost advisories and warnings across the great lakes region. and heavy rain continues across the gulf coast. miami will remain on the wet side into the next several days. probably into your friday. miami at 32 degrees. pleasant weather for the east coast. 22 in chicago. across the northwest, very chilly for this time of year. only 15 degrees for you in vancouver and seattle at 16 degrees on tuesday. all right.

and putin agreed their deputy foreign ministers would meet to discuss four russian-held islands off hokkaido. japan claims sovereignty over the islands and they've long been a source of friction. >>> abe has other matters on his mind, particularly tokyo's bid to host the olympics and paralympics in 2020. he met with the leaders of argentina and brazil to ask for their support. abe held separate talks with argentine prt cristina fernandez de kirchner and brazil ja president dilma rousseff. he told fer nan says that he would make it to buenos aries in time for the international olympic committee. abe said he'll be the first sitting japanese leader to visit argentina since his grandfather noeb o o suki kishy visited. she wishes japan every success with their bid and they want to strengthen the relationships between argentine and japanese. >> people from madrid and istanbul are trying to attract support of their own. they're trying to win the right to host the games. many people in tokyo are hopeful about their chances. others are expressing concern. more from nhk world's kuran kuranda tago. >>

showers there into hokkaido and northern portions of honshu. that's due to this weak upper-level trough extending back to the west across the korean peninsula. even including shanghai, about 97 millimeters of rainfall in the past 24 hours. so rain is continuing to come down out here. there is a risk of some flooding, but it will persist throughout the next several days. really across much of this area. also, i want to quickly mention our tropical depression in the northern marian a islands, high waves expected, 2 to 4 meter high waves into friday and saturday. the thing with that storm, it is expected to intensify to a severe tropical storm. and possibly even more so after that. and impact somewhere here along the pacific coast of japan. that impact is quite uncertain at this time, though. it all depends on this jet stream, where exactly it's going to be going, how far it will go down and how much interaction it's going to have with it. it may hook off to the north or stay down to the south. so we want to continue to keep a very close eye on it

we do have another system over hokkaido which is pulling the cold front. lots of thunderstorms are happening across the area. and due to the combination of the upper cold air and the surface temperature still summer-like, this is the typical picture. and that's going to be found throughout the day today. about 50 millimeters of rainfall will be found just in an hour, sudden downburst of showers as well as sudden flooding, hail, thunderstorms, even tornadic activity cannot be ruled out again today especially across the kanto region. but the western areas of japan are looking fine. especially these areas of china. here across southern china, a different store we the low pressure system still lingering in similar areas. guangdong province saw 200 millimeters of rain. it could top 100 that could easily cause flooding and landslides. hong kong at 28, taipei 29. ulan bator is cooling down with partly sunny skies. now let's move over to the americas. it's september, early september, i should say, but we have frost advisories and freeze warnings due to a cold fron

areas as it it does push by, be do have a trough coming in and that will bring thunderstorms across hokkaido, but the big top wick this as thetorm pulls off toward the northeast, it will wrap cool, northerly winds behind it and autumn weather will filter through china axe korea and over toward japan. have a jacket by the time friday rolls around because it will feel cooler. i want to talk about the tropics. we have a new tropical depression starting to form in the south china sea and all of the infwreed yents are in place right here for the possibility of this developing into something bigger. we definitely want to keep a close eye on it, but the big topic is we have been seeing this continued monsoon flow and that has been bringing some devastating floods down here, deadly landslides, as well and this could make that situation worse, so definitely want to continue to keep an eye on this and even if it's not named it will bring the heavy rainfall with it. for the temperatures across, they're in the 30s and shanghai at 25 and seoul on thursday. let's take a look at the americas and what's goi

that will be moving into hokkaido. thunderstorms are likely. northern kyushu will likely be the heaviest downpour area. tokyo, beautiful skies the last few days, looking overcast and wet conditions into the start of this week. 25 degrees here in tokyo. 24 degrees here in seoul with rain. ulan bator at 10 degrees for your high there. and taipei looking at 31 with rain chances. yesterday looked like it was a nice day to have this event. let me show you a video coming out from there. a unique event took place in taipei on sunday under calm autumnal weather. more than 50 teams competed in a race showing creativity and determination. soapbox cars are no longer made from old soapboxes. some contestants crossed the finish line and crashed into bales of hay. contestants take into account not only speed but creativity as well. looks like a really fun event there. all right, pulling back let's move over to north america and canada where we're seeing this system moving inland and steadily bringing heavy rain and gusty conditions. and the canadian rockies,

he criticized hokkaido railroad company for leaving nearly 100 irregularities on its tracks unfixed. spokes persons for the firm say they forgot about the problems because they were too busy. >> translator: the staff admits they knew about the problems. still, they didn't do anything to fix them. but this issue is too serious just to say, we forgot. >> the latest incidents related to the problems include the derailment of a freight train and fires on three express trains. the irregularities include differences in track widths and the height between the rails that exceed safety limits. the minister suggests he will order hokkaido railway to make adjustments, once ongoing inspections are completed. >>> on a much lighter note, it's a bit early for halloween, but japanese farmers have competed to see who could grow the largest pumpkin. the winning entry weighed in at nearly 500 kilograms. organizers have held the event for 27 years. 31 farmers from across japan entered this time around, most of them grow pumpkins to feed livesto livestock. the heaviest weighed in at 435 kilo grams. the m