Unseasonable weather has blighted agriculture across Japan, as well as sales of summer clothes

Tokyo’s cloudiest few weeks in nearly 60 years has cast a shadow over the capital’s vegetable markets, forcing up the prices of some by 70%.

Japan has been hit by unseasonably cloudy weather and cool temperatures, Tokyo enjoying fewer than three hours of sunshine a day for 20 days through to Tuesday, the lowest recorded since Japan’s Meteorological Agency started collecting data in 1961.