The location of the front migrates slowly northward over eastern China, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan over the course of spring and early summer, providing a focus for showers and rain, especially when waves of low pressure move along the front. This stationary front is known as the Baiu front in Japan and as the Mei-yu front in China. In East Asia, the boundary between the warm, humid air from the ocean to the south and the continental air to the north often becomes more or less stationary. This land-sea temperature difference causes the winds to shift warm air rises over the continent, and moist air from over the oceans flows in to replace it. Land surfaces have less heat capacity than surrounding oceans, and they heat up faster.
![heavy rain gif heavy rain gif](http://media.giphy.com/media/6aNqogQUABLOg/giphy.gif)
Each year as the Earth’s orbit brings the Northern Hemisphere back under more direct sunlight, the Asian continent starts to heat up. As of late July 2009, eight people were reported to have died as a result, with nine more still missing, according to news reports. The heavy rains led to widespread flash flooding and numerous landslides. Rainfall totals exceeded 600 millimetres (shown in deep blue) at the centre of this rain area, with lesser amounts of up to 150 millimetres (shown in pale green) extending into central Japan. The most prominent feature is a large bull’s-eye of heavy rain centred over the northern part of Kyushu and the south western tip of Honshu.
![heavy rain gif heavy rain gif](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/NastyUnlinedBantamrooster-max-1mb.gif)
This animation shows rainfall estimates for southern Japan and the surrounding region from July 20–27. English: The 2009 summer monsoon brought torrential rains to south western Japan in July.