The Central Weather Bureau was scheduled to issue a sea alert for Typhoon Megi as of press time last night, as the storm gained power on its way toward eastern and southern Taiwan.
By 8pm yesterday, the center of the typhoon was 920km east-southeast of Taiwan proper, moving west-northwest at 16kph, packing winds up to 137kph.
The radius of the storm was 200km, the bureau said.
The sea alert was scheduled to issued at 11:30pm last night. Because of the approaching typhoon, the Maritime and Port Bureau said that several shipping route services would be canceled today, tomorrow and Wednesday.
A majority of the canceled shipping services are in eastern and southern Taiwan, including those between Taitung’s Fugang Fishing Port and Green Island (綠島); between Houbi Lake (後壁湖) in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) and Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼); and between Donggang (東港) in Pintung County and Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球).
Other canceled services are between Keelung and Matsu, Kaohsiung and Penghu, Taipei and Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province and Matsu’s Nangan (南竿) and Dongyin (東引島) islets.
Based on the bureau’s projected path, Megi is likely to make landfall in the nation’s southeast.
It is predicted to move across the nation and continue toward China, according to the bureau’s analysis.
To better understand the typhoon’s structure, the bureau said it will today activate the Dropsonde Observation for Typhoon Surveillance near the Taiwan Region project.
The jet used in the project is to climb to an altitude of about 13km and conduct observations in key spots along the path of the typhoon’s movement, the bureau said, adding that the data would be transmitted back to the bureau via satellite.
The bureau said the information collected through the project can reduce the margin of error in its 72-hour forecast for the typhoon’s path by about 6.5 percent.
Megi is a rare example of predictions provided by different weather forecast agencies around the world being consistent with one another, bureau Director-General Cheng Ming-dean (鄭明典) said on Facebook.
Other agencies have made only minor adjustments to their predictions of how the typhoon would move over the next few days, he wrote.
Former bureau director-general Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said it is still too early to say the exact location where the typhoon would make landfall.
Wu said the interaction between the typhoon and Taiwan’s terrain would also skew the typhoon’s path before its eye makes landfall, making its movement difficult to predict.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
The navy next month is expected to commission into service two more domestically built Tuo Chiang-class stealth missile corvettes, a source said yesterday. The Hsu Chiang (旭江, PGG-621) and the Wu Chiang (武江, PGG-623) would be officially commissioned in a ceremony early next month, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The corvettes, launched in February and June last year respectively, were delivered to the navy in February. They are the third and fourth Tuo Chiang-class stealth missile corvettes to be produced. The Tuo Chiang-class corvette is a domestically designed and manufactured class of fast and stealthy multipurpose corvette built for the
A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan. The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan. Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated