Typhoon Soudelor yesterday weakened to a medium-strength typhoon and is likely to make landfall in the coastal area between Yilan and Hualien counties, according to the Central Weather Bureau.
As of 2pm yesterday, the center of the typhoon was located 1,370km southeast of Taipei and was moving steadily toward Taiwan.
It was moving northwest at 22kph, with the radius of the storm remaining at 250km.
The bureau is expected to issue a sea alert at noon today, which is to be followed by a land alert tonight.
Although Soudelor appeared to have weakened slightly, the bureau warned that the typhoon could gain strength due to tomorrow’s atmospheric conditions.
Bureau forecaster Luo Ya-ying (羅雅尹) said the guiding air stream of the Pacific Ocean was clear, which could cause the typhoon to continue moving at high speed.
There would not be any drastic change in the typhoon’s path, she added.
Weather Forecast Center Director Cheng Ming-dean (鄭明典) said that Soudelor was not being strengthened by humidity from convection clouds in the south.
As such, the typhoon’s movement would not trigger the southwest air stream, which often leads to torrential rainfall, he said.
However, Cheng said the effects of the southwest wind would be felt after the typhoon passes Taiwan.
Meanwhile, the bureau reported a rare occurrence of a waterspout 5km southeast of its observation station on Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼), which lasted about five minutes.
According to the bureau, the phenomenon generally occurs when there is strong convection, and the eastern and southern coasts are more likely to witness such an event, although waterspouts have occasionally occurred off the southwest coast as well.
The approach of Soudelor comes at a similar time to Typhoon Morakot in 2009, which barreled into Taiwan on Aug. 8, when the nation celebrates Father’s Day.
The torrential downpours brought by Morakot caused the most severe flooding in the nation since 1959, resulting in the deaths of 681 people, 474 of them in Siaolin Village (小林) in then-Kaohsiung County, who were buried alive under a mudslide.
Historical records compiled by WeatherRisk showed that the bureau has issued sea alerts for 28 tropical storms or typhoons in the month of August, and 17 of them have hit the nation.
Eleven had both sea and land alerts issued around this time of year.
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