A tropical depression near Guam is likely to turn into a tropical storm and could start affecting the weather in Taiwan on Wednesday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
The tropical depression is still about 3,000km away, but a strong high air-pressure system in the Pacific Ocean could drive it west, it said.
If it turns into a tropical storm, it would be named Rammasun, the “god of thunder” in Thai, the bureau said.
Though the tropical depression is still too far to have any effect on the weather in Taiwan this week, the bureau said that the system would move near the coast of the Philippines on Wednesday and Thursday. Chances of rain in the nation’s east coast will increase as winds in the east or southeast rise.
Rains would help drive temperatures down to about 32°C.
Statistics from the bureau showed that foehn winds in Dawu (大武), Taitung County, rose yesterday morning, causing the mercury to hit 37°C at 11:14am. Temperatures in Taipei and New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) also rose to 35.9°C and 35.8°C respectively.
Typhoon Neoguri, which wreaked havoc on Japan this week, has been reduced to an extratropical cyclone.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Taiwan has activated backup communications for its northernmost territory, the remote and strategically located island of Dongyin (東引), after poor weather conditions apparently shifted the wreckage of a ship onto an undersea cable causing it to break. The vulnerability of undersea communication cables linking Taiwan with its outlying islands has been a persistent cause of concern for Taipei, whose government has on several occasions blamed Chinese ships for intentionally causing damage. Dongyin, home to about 1,500 people, sits in a strategic position at the top of the Taiwan Strait and the island has a heavy military presence. It does not have an
RSS