Windy but very noice.
I have, didnāt have any good food there. I havenāt lived there, maybe if I made an effort I could find something. Or, just go to Thailand where the weather is similar but the food is waaaaaay better.
Had insomnia for the last couple weeks. Think I finally broke it with a 49 hour streak and then just crashing out at midnight. Hopefully that will stabilize it.
haha, you must be down South of Taiwan. Taipei went from heat until mid October straight to nearly constant rain but still warmish - to now maybe cold and rainy.. Sunndy days were an exception - even more in the mountains.
However tomorrow to Sunday looks pretty nice for Taipeiā¦
Oh, the post was very much an ironic comment on the ā¦ three? ā¦ pleasant fall days weāve had in the Taipei area - i.e. comfortable temperatures and also sunny.
The weekend does look dry, but Iām not sure what the roads will be like for cycling with all the rain this week. My preferred routes will probably have too much leaf litter.
Yeah most people telling me they cannot remember such a shit weather period, thatās even bad for Taipeiā¦ November is supposed to be the driest month of the year here, 
And yeah I also can exactly remember 3 pleasant days last week and that was it for autumnā¦
Iām like happy I took my chance to ride Buddhaās hand last week cause those two days last week may have been the only proper days to ride it from mid October all the way to end Novemberā¦
Actually is there any reliable rain radar with look ahead next 120minutes for Taiwan/Taipei?
AccuWeather seems to usually cut Taiwan out and must be based on some Chinese data, itās correct right up to the coastal areas more or less.
Constantly happens to me that I just go out to ride 90-120 minutes in the supposedly best weather window/driest time to get pounded down in rainā¦
The Taiwanese rain radar is only looking back which in Taipei with the mountains doesnāt tell you anything as itās constantly raining in Keelung lately.
Not that Iāve found. āBestā Iām aware of is the Taiwan Central Weather Administration radar (here), but thatās whatās current.
And it sure didnāt help much yesterday, when it was showing no rain, and indeed my climb up Balaka was dry and pleasant. Checked the radar at the summit - āOK, looks like despite the fog just ahead of me I can see in the Xiaoyoukong webcam (here), the descent to Jinshan will be dry.ā It was not, and I wish Iād had some way to know that the first third of the descent would be in thick very wet fog, and then the middle third would be rain.
Yeah I last this week onl Saturday was possible to ride up yangminshan without getting in drizzly rain. On Friday I got onto pretty wet roads as well. Saturday was actually the first time since Iām here (20. October) that it was fully dry around lengshuikeng, yet of course still some clouds higher up. I donāt believe anymore to get a blue sky day this November on yangminshan around the top with all peaks out of the clouds. The inversion is simply too low so the highest cloud free level on yangminshan is around 1000m, peak constantly cloudy.
I donāt think so. Cwb has the best (subjective) weather forecast but donāt try predicting the weather here. Itās either exceptionally hard to do, or something else.
Always carry umbrella or rain coat if hiking. No one can know with any certainty if it will rain and even radars donāt tell you if rain clouds will just spawn out of nowhere.
If you give me the recent rain radar and some pressure gradients at various spots and ground pressure itās quite easy to get the next 120 minutes more or less correct even with mountains and sea.
Put it into decent software and the outcome will be good enough.
I use rain radar all the time for paragliding in various mountain regions and it rarely fails.
The problem with just the rain radar without having proper pressure plots and putting that into software the radar tells you nothing about the future because you donāt know how it behaves with the mountains. Itās fine enough in flattish landsā¦
YR, weatherunderground and CWB, yeah but they are still really hit or miss just a bit better than the rest.
AccuWeather the rain radar sometimes actually does work and includes Taiwan, then again itās taken out. The underlying radar prediction they source is quite good.
And for fast cycling umbrella simply isnāt an option. Yeah right now itās still warm enough to ride fast in the rain, but from tomorrow that will be a bit cold (or too warm if then doesnāt rain), plus the mountain roads get really sketchy here with strong rains. Even youbike is bad enough in the rain if you cannot wear sandals wherever you want to go to. I really would like at some sandals with cleats for Taipei if living here. Normal cycling shoes end up a stinky mess if you donāt wash them with soap after every rainy rideā¦
I bet someone in china makes sandals with cleats. I wear sandals because otherwise my feet turns into a stinky, hot, and itchy mess.
You might even have to diy them.
Iām just speculating but it must be that they donāt put sensors in the mountains for reasons, or data isnāt shared with the likes of AccuWeather.
Sometimes accuweather shows the radar for Taiwan in the prediction - often itās cut right at the land border. But the clouds appear again after traversing the country - meaning this data is there but due to some reason itās not shown most of the time. Sometimes pausing and sliding around works - depends on the zoom level..
Thereās also a resolution problem:
But I donāt know what is it with weather prediction in Taiwan. Often you can sorta believe the macro forecasts (will rain in northern Taiwan for example vs rain only in the mountains). But even then the forecasts are only semi accurateā¦ Iām not sure if itās a sensor issue or something.
According to the CWA there are plenty of stations.. I think yangminshan has 3 at least. Thereās 2 airports in Taipei which need very good forecasts and surely both have daily or twice daily an hot air balloon sent up to measure the temperature/pressure gradients.
There are nice radar dishes around several places in Taiwan, surely at least the military has that data.
But yeah maybe CWA has bad software, and because of China doesnāt hand out any raw data in usable form.
Iām sure the pilots get nice weather bulletins every 6 hours updated or so. Cannot have an international airport without that. I think itās mainly in making that data available where the problems arise.
And without good past data you cannot properly model future data.
Actually islands are easier to model Vs large landmasses as the water temperature/wind there is super easy to forecast.
In Austria I have access to the pilot weather forecast website due to being a registered paraglider. You donāt need it much for non flying sports but it comes very handy if you want to know cloud layer altitude also for other mountain sports.. still rain radar is indispensable for 120 minutes forecasting with unstable weather.
I would guess thereās enough small airplanes in Taiwan that fly VFR instead of IFR , meaning abridged without radar so they need that data.
Fucking finally getting some actual cool weather in Taipeiā¦ 
But with the high humidity, itās just still a sweat ball.
Hmm, not too clammy where I amā¦yet.