Typhoon Talas is expected to hit Japan on August 2, but its path is hard to predict because it’s not your normal hurricane.

The U.S. Navy/Air Force Joint Typhoon Warning Center is saying that Talas is not a normal typhoon: “The upper-level analysis continues to reveal an unusual upper-level pattern with an upper low over the center and anticyclonic flow around the periphery.”

What’s not normal about that, is that anti-cyclonic storms normally form around high pressure systems.  Talas is showing low pressure.  Also, anti-cyclonic storms are associated with cold weather and often cause massive snowfall, it’s summer time in Japan.  (Can you say The Day After Tomorrow?)

Some predictions say the typhoon will drive up the middle of Honshu and Hokkaido, other predictions say it’ll keep driving north into the Sea of Japan.