Last month, the JMA website conducted a survey, asking respondents to choose from a list of candidates, and based on the results, along with interviews with meteorological experts, the agency has made its decision, and says that henceforth it will refer to over-40-degree days as kokushobi, which translates to “cruel heat days” or “cruelly hot days.” Kokushobi is written with the kanji 酷, 暑, and 日, meaning “cruel,” “heat/hot,” and “day,” respectively. [...] Kokushobi was by far the most common response in the JMA’s survey, garnering 202,954 votes, more than double any other candidate, with second-place finisher chomoshobi (super fierce heat day) receiving only 65,896 votes. Kokushobi also had strong support from meteorology experts for being easy to understand and also because it’s the same term that the Japan Weather Association, a non-government weather forecasting organization, has been using since 2022, so it already has some linguistic traction. -- Japanese government creates new word for cruelly hot summer days