The Taiwan Weather Thread

Shorts + hoodie and t-shirt weather is here! Best time of the year!

Just remember Icon wil be oggling hairy atoga legs. :howyoudoin:

Icon wrote: “Many centenial trees were lost in universities in Kaohsiung and Tainan due to this Melanti typhoon. I do believe all trees must be protected, unless we want more floodings and landslides, and that the level of attention to this one single tree might feel like mockery with all the destruction around it. But the tree brings tourists and much needed business to the area, so it should stay.”

Whether you are an atheist or believe in a God, most people acknowledge that there is a life-force that is greater than us. As humans we didn’t invent that, we are just part of the continuum. Along the journey, some things become symbolic of this energy and Icon’s tree fits the bill. We have done more than enough to destroy nature, so it makes sense that we do something to re-balance the ledger and show some bloody respect. Originally, this tree would have been part of a forest, which in turn, would have afforded it protection from typhoons. People have cut all those trees down and now this is the sole, miraculous survivor.

By caring for this elderly tree, we open a thought path into the planet that has borne us. Maybe that can help us find a path forward.

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The north-east monsoon has been evident in the last couple of weeks, which is earlier than usual, and with it comes several migratory birds. The most obvious ones are the wagtails, especially the yellow one, which has arrived in good numbers in Taidong. The black and white version is pretty common in the north as well and should already be appearing in the leafy suburbs of Taipei. They have this short hopping flying action, which makes me wonder how they made it all the way from Japan.

As an atheist that’s really not what I believe. But I do like trees although I don’t expect them to open thought paths or help me in any way. They can just carry on being trees and that’s enough.

Caring for elderly trees…meh…let’s have some new ones.

So you don’t believe that organisms have a survival instinct (which is a kind of life-force)? That’s pretty radical. What do you ‘believe’?

Well, the typhoon has moved on supposedly, but it’s like it’s just started in Taidong. Huge rain since early this morning. 250 mil in Taimali in a few hours and still pouring.

Seems there is a system over the northern PPE and maybe the tail of Megi is sucking that into Taidong.

It’s interesting that this season, apart from Nepartak, there weren’t a lot of typhoons forming early on, and most of the activity seemed to be forming much further north than where it usually happens. A couple of TD’s even formed north of Taipei, which i’ve never seen before.

I wonder if that was a result of the sea-surface temps being so warm this year that the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone moved to an extreme northern position.

As the season has gone on, the ITCZ has oscillated back to a more traditional level and that’s resulted in a burst of late-season typhoons. It may well be that this season could drag on right through October.

Omnious lead grey clouds heere in Taipei. Looks like the sky is going to fall on us with all its wrath.

Has it started raining anywhere else?

It is in Taidong - in fact, starting to feel like i’m back in Xijih. Weirdly, though, it’s still quite hot. Usually a Sep typhoon will put a decent dent in the heat.

Tainan is the place that’s really copping it. Another 50-mil-hour there and I see they have over 1000 mil for Sep - which is a whopping 800+mil over the ave for Sep.

It almost looks like the new typhoon is unravelling into the slipstream of Megi - which is dragging a lot of rain over Taidong.

Most places in Taiwan were about 1/2 degree hotter than average for September, despite 3 typhoons to cool things off. Alishan was a full degree hotter.

Tainan topped the island for rainfall with a whopping 1220.3 ml (50 inches). That must be close to a record for Tainan in Sep. Their average is only 178.

Pissing down in Taidong tonight - some tummy tickling fronm the tail of the typhoon in Japan i guess - and CWB has just issued an orange rain warning for Taidong and Hualien

Looks like a new typhoon is forming in the usual spot - predicted to stay just south of Taiwan but could easily drift up a bit.

My WU app warns me that Thunderstorms will continue… I have this blinding ray of light that manages to crawl betwen the closed blinds every afternoon at just about this time and hit me right in the eyes…

So what gives? Are these burning pre typhoon angry skies or can we expect some relief? I am still using the AC all night long.

Not in our life-times. It feels like global warming has well and truly moved out of the abstract realm and it’s now an actual thing we need to adjust to.

We are on track, supposedly, to record the second hottest year on record. The figures below are for Jan-Aug

  1. 1998 0.5725
  2. 2016 0.5662
  3. 2010 0.4000
  4. 2002 0.2462
  5. 2015 0.2150
  6. 2007 0.2087
  7. 2005 0.1987
  8. 2014 0.1637
  9. 2003 0.1587
  10. 1991 0.1312
  11. 2013 0.1275
  12. 2001 0.1075
  13. 2006 0.0950
  14. 2004 0.0875
  15. 1988 0.0837
  16. 1995 0.0800
  17. 2009 0.0375
  18. 2011 0.0225

Serious rain event going on for the east coast at the moment. Has poured all night and looks to be a lot more to feed through. Seems to be the tail of a fairly innocuous looking tropical storm that passed under Taiwan yesterday - it’s now drawing a lot of moisture across the coast.

300 plus mil for many places - that’s more than we got from any of the big typhoons.

Reports of road-blocking landslides on Highway 11 (right where the Council had green-lighted two mega-resort developments - despite evidence presented from protesters showing those sights were landslide deathtraps)

If you are planning on coming to Taidong for the holiday weekend:

Highway 11 will almost certainly be blocked from landslides in several locations from the Ilan-Hualien border through to Taidong city

Trains may also be delayed or cancelled due to landslides but don’t have info on that yet

Planes will probably be delayed or cancelled (though EVA should be still right to go)

It doesn’t look like that tropical storm is going to move much all weekend, so it’s going to keep dragging that moisture in. Lots of rain still to come, no doubt.

I really, really need to get in some cycling this weekend. I guess I’m going to get wet. On the bright side of things, the air quality is just great:

And the temperatures will be manageable.

If you don’t clean the bike, at least dehumidify it OR clean the chain/cassette so the chain doesn’t rust!

Seems like we’ve had bad weather for a lot of the long weekends this year.

Why is it 20 degrees indoors? And someone in the office keeps on setting the AC to 15?

I’ve been pretty good about cleaning my bike and oiling the chain lately. This would be great running weather, but I need to do some brick sessions in preparation for the last triathlon coming up at the end of the month. I hope it just gets cooler and cooler. I’ve got a wetsuit so no prob. And I don’t enjoy fading on the run when the temperatures are at 35 degrees or so.

NO CLASS NO WORK IN TAITUNG this afternoon and evening.

Hualien the same, I believe. Rain has been intense all day, typhoon levels. Clouds are closing in again now, and getting dark already at 3pm.