Cuaca Takayama, Gifu di September

Regulars are careful to separate three different odds that get conflated: the chance of a typhoon somewhere in Japan this month is genuinely high, the chance one makes landfall is lower, and the chance it hits your specific location at your specific time is very low - with a typhoon's aftermath often bringing perfectly clear weather rather than lingering disruption. Our row backs a wet, still-warm month, 27.3C reading as a hot 30C, over 17.6C nights, with a real 215.2mm of rain across 17.6 days. Regulars specifically recommend October over this month for those wanting to avoid both the heat and the higher typhoon odds, though most days here remain clear regardless. The record: humidity 82 percent, 8.2 hours of sun, an 8.4 kph wind and one of the cleanest air readings in this project, AQI 34.

Takayama's forum is consistent that November is the transition month, not full winter: by mid-month a cold wind picks up and light snow can fall, but it's the kind that melts rather than piles up on the streets, since Takayama sits in a basin rather than up in the mountains. Real snow season, posters agreed, doesn't properly start until December. Expect cold mornings warming a little by afternoon, and layer up - one traveler compared the feel to a chilly October day in the northeastern US, more brisk than bitter.

May is good weather in Takayama — 20°C by day, 10 overnight, before June's heat and rain — but it falls between the two things the town is best known for. The Sannō Festival, the spring half of the Takayama Matsuri and one of the three most beautiful festivals in Japan, runs 14–15 April; the autumn festival is in October. May gets you the old town, the float exhibition hall and the Japanese Alps without either crowd. The record does show rain on fourteen days, so "before it gets wet in June" is a relative claim.