So I have an option between staying in Taipei for Sept - Jan or Feb - June. I was just wondering which one is better. I come from Canada btw. From what I can see, Sept will be pretty hot, but will cool down quickly. While Feb-June might get a lot of rain/grey
Iād pick the former
Sept and October sunny and warm to hot possible typhoons
Nov cool down some cold fronts maybe
December usually pleasant
Jan wet and cold
The other half my general experience
Feb to late March cold and lots of rain and grey
April to May monsoon season falls in there with torrential rain
June is summer. Possibly hot and sunny chance of typhoon and possibly daily thunderstorm
Sep-Jan.
Can experience one-day holidays in the fall (Mid-Autumn festival), but donāt have to worry about first time in Taiwan for Lunar New Year (typically late-Jan to February depending on calendar year) when everything shuts down for a few days, especially if you just arrived and not familiar with things.
Iād also choose hot weather over cold and damp in Taipei for winter.
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April is the cruelest month
Iād vote for the Fallābut do be aware that older weather patterns are getting rearranged with higher temperatures and stronger typhoons arriving later in the calendar year. In the 2020s who knows what to expect.
Guy
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Can you do September to mid November and then come back from March to May?
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You can see some monthly data here.
Specifics about sunshine duration or mean temperature are here; you can choose different options at the top.
(People who know more about ChatGPT etc. than I do: is there a way to get AI to pull out data from and get charts comparing year by year? It sure feels like falls are getting warmer, but Iād like to see data on that. Plus those charts linked above seem to mostly end at 2020.)
Air quality data is relevant as well (here for Danshui) - things are better than they used to be, but spring is generally going to be worse than fall. June and July are probably best for that, and the skies are indeed gorgeous, but my god itās hot.
Iād say fall is better, and ātraditionallyā is the best time of year here, but these days it feels like the searing summer heat continues well into October or even November. Last year in particular it felt like we had maybe four nice autumn days. (Still better than spring, which you may miss if you sleep in one day.)
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I always advise friends to come late October or early November before the rain starts. Generally the weather has started to cool down and there are no holidays.
Taiwan is pretty pleasant to travel around when it isnāt a national holiday.
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Wha?? That sounds like a Chinese hoax.
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I will be staying for 5 months. Going to be studying there. Does that change your answer, specifically the lunar new year part?
I would go for the second option in the spirit of å č¦å¾ē (bitter first, sweet later). It will suck when you first arrive, but then will get better and better. June will be hot, but you wonāt be too sick of it by the end of that month yet.
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yeah get it sweet and good and then die hard OR slog through the depression and then a ray of sunshine at the end and then you are gone (out of taiwan)
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Honestly though imagine arriving in Jan to non stop Frickin RAIN. NON FRICKING STOP rain and you smell the fungus growing on you and your feet are growing webs and the constant grey grey skies al through the middle of March when a ray of sun comes for a few days probably along with a super cold front from China but at least itās sunny and dry
Then ā¦ā¦April ā¦ā¦comes the Spring thunder and the you guessed it constant thunderstorms only to be followed by ā¦ā¦MO FRICKIN ā¦ā¦MONSOON. FRICKIN season with Torrential Rain 24/7 for two weeks finally summer arrives in June and its Daily afternoon thunderstorms AND you are hit by two typhoons in a row
Then you leave
That is a very real possibility for north Taiwan !!!
And you wished you had gone south
So better enjoy the sun hot as it is but it aināt too bad in September and by the time the English winter arrives you my friend have LEFT the rock
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no.
i like Taipei in the fall (but not a fall in North America). Do not like Taipei from Jan to March. No central heating in concrete apartment s, so walls (concrete) lower temps in room to where you feel like youāre in a refrigerator or worse.
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I would definitely vote for the fall, my favorite āseasonā in Taipei. Winter in my w,perience was pretty much constant rain/drizzle/cold with unheated apartments. In case you celebrate Christmas, some areas of Taipei have lots of Christmas lights in December :-).
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I do feel like the weather patterns have shifted. How many October typhoons were there in 2024? We had multiple typhoon days. After not much in the summer through September. Canāt speak much on temps and rain patterns as I donāt pay as much attention to overall trends. I feel like northern taiwan is always freezy cold at night and super warm during the day in the winter and then just HOT the rest of the year.
Florida got hit with like a foot of snow two weeks ago while the US Midwest is a land of dead grass and no snow. And really cold temps (well below zero) to really make sure all that grass is good and dead to the roots and doesnāt come back when spring comes around. (Northern US plants rely on the snow to make a nice warm blanket for them and protect them from the cold. But this year there is no snow blanket for them)
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If you have to be in Taipei, then the fall usually has the best weather. While I detest Taipeiās weather from mid-December until the end of March, I tend to think that it doesnāt bother or affect newcomers that much. If you are coming to study Chinese, you can do more in five months than three months. I wouldnāt let the weather prevent me from getting five months in. Itās not that big of a deal.
Must you come to Taipei? The weather on the west side of Taiwan from Taichung down south is quite pleasant most of the time from Feb to June.
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