The use of や...など　in news


> １８日から１９日、関東地方 **や** 東北地方 **など** で雨がとてもたくさん降りそうです

This sentence is taken from a news article.

I know that など means "and so on," "etc," and や means that there may be more
things or people implied.

But this kind of language doesn't seem precise enough. However, it's often
used in news. In the article about rain, they encourage people from the
regions to be careful. Isn't it necessary to be precise about which regions
must be on the alert? (Kanto and Tohoku clearly must be careful, but which
place exactly is meant by など?..)

I wonder how Japanese people would interpret this particular など. Could it mean
a place like Hokkaido, for example, which is not too far from Tohoku? If it
could, why isn't it necessary to mention it so that there is no room for
ambiguity and guesses?




There are at least two questions regarding similar usage of など:

  * [Difference between と and や～など](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17376/7810)
  * [Towards a better understanding of など](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/48518/7810)

But I guess those are not what you are asking here.

As for _why_ it is used _in this case_ , I believe it's an effort making
trade-off between brevity and accuracy. Its connotation is something like:
"there will be a heavy rain **around** Kanto and Tohoku regions, so whoever
living in surrounding areas should also keep an eye on it".

Kanto and Tohoku are very large divisions, while the actual weather does not
care about human society. Thus the real alert map would be painted in a quite
patchy picture, where a certain town outside the region could be more
dangerous than another inside it.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZYTT.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZYTT.jpg)

Eventually they do report a detailed list specifically which municipalities in
which prefectures are involved, but it takes a couple of minutes to rotate
over on the news strip, or easily twice or more scrolls on the website, which
is not very possible to contain in a simple news flash.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hq3s6.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hq3s6.png)




There are at least two questions regarding similar usage of など:

  * [Difference between と and や～など](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17376/7810)
  * [Towards a better understanding of など](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/48518/7810)

But I guess those are not what you are asking here.

As for _why_ it is used _in this case_ , I believe it's an effort making
trade-off between brevity and accuracy. Its connotation is something like:
"there will be a heavy rain **around** Kanto and Tohoku regions, so whoever
living in surrounding areas should also keep an eye on it".

Kanto and Tohoku are very large divisions, while the actual weather does not
care about human society. Thus the real alert map would be painted in a quite
patchy picture, where a certain town outside the region could be more
dangerous than another inside it.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZYTT.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VZYTT.jpg)

Eventually they do report a detailed list specifically which municipalities in
which prefectures are involved, but it takes a couple of minutes to rotate
over on the news strip, or easily twice or more scrolls on the website, which
is not very possible to contain in a simple news flash.

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hq3s6.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Hq3s6.png)

