The Central Weather Bureau at 2:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Severe Tropical Storm Bailu, which is forecast to make landfall in southern Taiwan today.
As of 8:30pm, the storm was 452km southeast of Taiwan and was moving northwest at 29kph, the bureau said.
Bailu was packing maximum sustained winds of 100.8kph, with gusts of up to 126kph, it said.
As of 8:40pm, Tainan and Kaohsiung, as well as Pingtung and Taitung counties, had canceled school and work for today.
In its land warning, the bureau forecast that the storm would make landfall on the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) at about 2pm today, bringing strong winds and torrential rain to Pingtung County.
With a radius of 120km, Bailu is also likely to dump heavy to extremely heavy rain on Hualien and Taitung counties, Green Island (綠島) and Orchid Island (Lanyu Island, 蘭嶼), the bureau said.
The waters around the Hengchun Peninsula and Green and Orchid islands are to remain high into the weekend, it added.
Heavy rain is defined by the bureau as accumulated rainfall of more than 80mm over 24 hours or more than 40mm in one hour, while extremely heavy rainfall means more than 200mm in 24 hours or more than 100mm in three hours.
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