Climate risk in Sendai
Miyagi, Japan
Main risks in Sendai
On tropical cyclones and earthquakes, Sendai ranks above at least 88% of the world's 626 large cities.
- Tropical cyclones
- once in 100 years, winds of about 136 km/h (category 1) [1]
- Higher than 89% of the world's large cities; 10th of 11 large cities in Japan.
- For comparison: Mumbai 142 km/h, Shanghai 141 km/h, Seoul 137 km/h.
- Earthquakes
- very strong shaking on firm ground (0.3 g), more on soft ground [2]
- Higher than 88% of the world's large cities; 8th of 11 large cities in Japan.
- For comparison: Istanbul 0.33 g, Guadalajara 0.29 g, Jakarta 0.28 g.
- g is the pull of gravity: from about 0.1 g, shaking is strong and can cause light damage to buildings.
0.3 g Natural Earth Earthquake shaking on firm ground, 10% chance in 50 years
This week in Sendai
This week's forecast risk around the city, by day and by hour, and the hazard events near it now. [3] [4] [5]
This week's forecast for the city cannot be shown here right now.
Open the city on the mapThe Earth right now
The Earth's pulse reads the whole world, not this city, so it is the same on every city's page.
Earth's pulse, from 0 to 100. It rises with the number of people in the path of disasters now under way; 90 matches the 2004 tsunami.
Open the live mapWhere else Sendai stands out
+2.5 °C
Warming by 2050, if emissions level off [6]
Higher than 84% of the world's large cities; 2nd of 11 large cities in Japan.
For comparison: Baghdad +2.6 °C, Moscow +2.6 °C, Xi'an +2.4 °C.
Sendai's climate in the 2050s
2041-2060 compared with 1991-2020, if emissions level off [7] [6]
By the 2050s, Sendai's climate will have changed but will still be closer to its own today than to any other large city's. Of the others, Busan (South Korea) comes closest.
+1.6 °C
Mean temperature over the year
+1.7 °C
Average daily high, warmest month
+1.4 °C
Average nightly low, coldest month
+3%
Precipitation over the year
If emissions keep rising, Sendai would have the climate that Kobe (Japan) has today.
Climates are compared on seasonal temperature and rainfall alone, each difference weighed against the city's usual swings from year to year (the method of Mahony et al. 2017); heat waves, the heat of city streets and the rising sea are left out. All 3 estimates from the climate models, the middle one and the two ends of their range, point to Busan. [8]
Everything else measured
From the highest among the world's 626 large cities to the lowest.
| Reading | Sendai | Among 626 large cities | Rank in Japan (1 = highest) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days with 20 mm of rain or more in 2025 [9] | 14 days | higher than 68% of large cities | Rank in Japan (1 = highest): 8 of 11 |
| Sea level rise by 2050 over the 1995-2014 average, if emissions level off [10] | 21 cm, 16 cm of it after 2020 | higher than 61% of large coastal cities | Rank in Japan (1 = highest): 7 of 11 |
| Tropical nights in 2025, over 20 °C [9] | 84 nights | higher than 43% of large cities | Rank in Japan (1 = highest): 10 of 11 |
| Hottest day of 2025 [9] | 34.3 °C | higher than 31% of large cities | Rank in Japan (1 = highest): 10 of 11 |
| Water stress [11] | Low-Medium: 10 to 20% of the available water drawn | the same grade as 12% of large cities; higher than 30%, lower than 58% | |
| Drought risk [11] | Medium-High | the same grade as 38% of large cities; higher than 12%, lower than 50% | |
| Hot days in 2025, over 35 °C [9] | 0 days | like 37% of large cities | |
| River flood depth, 100-year event [12] | Dry at the centre; other districts can flood | like 85% of large cities | |
| Share of the land around the centre (a 10 km square) that a 100-year flood from the sea puts under 0.5 m of water or more [12] | 0% today and by 2080 if emissions keep rising | like 74% of large coastal cities | |
| Share of land sinking over 1 cm a year, within 15 km [13] | 0% | like 80% of large cities | |
| Land burned in an average year [14] | 0% | like 84% of large cities |
- Flood depth is given for one 1 km square at the city centre, in today's climate.
- Land subsidence comes from a model of satellite radar measurements from 2013 to 2019 in 2 km squares, read over all the land within 15 km of the centre rather than at one point.
- Water stress is the share of the available water drawn every year. Drought risk is how often droughts come, against the area's own usual rain, and how many people and how much farmland they would reach. Both are graded on WRI's own scale.
- Sea level rise is the IPCC projection for the nearest coast, counted from the 1995-2014 average. It is on a grid about 100 km across and counts the slow rise or fall of the land. "If emissions level off" is the IPCC's SSP2-4.5 scenario.
- Water stress and drought risk have no rank in the country: they are steps of a scale, and many cities share one.
- Tsunamis and landslides are not rated for a single city here.
Sources
- IRIS: the Imperial College Storm Model dataset: tropical cyclone wind
- GSHAP Global Seismic Hazard Map: earthquake shaking
- Environment and Climate Change Canada: Global Deterministic Prediction System (GDPS): the week's forecast map
- NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS): wildfire near the city now
- Japan Meteorological Agency: wildfire near the city now
- NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections (NEX-GDDP-CMIP6): warming, the 2050s comparison
- TerraClimate: the 2050s comparison
- Mahony, Cannon, Wang and Aitken (2017). A closer look at novel climates: new methods and insights at continental to landscape scales. Global Change Biology 23, 3934-3955: how climates are compared
- ERA5 Single Levels Daily Statistics: heavy rain, nights, hottest day, hot days
- IPCC AR6 Sea Level Projections: sea level rise
- Aqueduct 4.0 Water Risk Framework: water stress, drought risk
- Aqueduct Floods Hazard Maps: river flood depth, coastal floods
- Global Land Subsidence Mapping Reveals Widespread Loss of Aquifer Storage Capacity: sinking land
- Global Biomass Burning at 500 m (GFED500): burned land
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Source: Criora (criora.com), based on IRIS, GSHAP, ECCC, NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), Japan Meteorological Agency, NEX-GDDP-CMIP6, TerraClimate, ECMWF, IPCC, WRI, HydroShare, GFED500
APA
Criora. (2026). Sendai, Japan: climate risk profile [Data set]. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://criora.com/atlas/JPN/sendai BibTeX
@misc{criora_atlas_JPN_sendai_2026,
author = {{Criora}},
title = {Sendai, Japan: climate risk profile},
year = {2026},
url = {https://criora.com/atlas/JPN/sendai},
urldate = {2026-11-04}
} The figures may be reused on the terms of their sources, which this page names.
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