The mercury is set to rebound tomorrow as the cold wave that hovered over the nation weakens, the Central Weather Bureau said, adding that people could expect a warm and sunny start to the Lunar New Year holiday.
Lunar New Year’s Eve this year falls on Thursday and the holiday continues for five days, until Tuesday next week.
Bureau forecaster Lin Ding-yi (林定宜) said the cold wave that arrived on Saturday would continue to affect the nation until tomorrow morning, with lows of between 7°C and 9°C.
Temperatures on the plains along the coastal zone could dip to 6°C, he said.
The weather is expected to turn dry today due to a gradual decrease in humidity, lowering the chance of rain across the nation, with temperature starting to rise tomorrow, Lin said.
Highs across the nation are to pass 20°C on Wednesday, he said, adding that southern Taiwan could see temperatures reach 30°C.
Nevertheless, residents on the west coast could see a difference of more than 10°C between daytime and nighttime temperatures at the start of the holiday because of the radiative cooling effect, Lin said.
Overall, the nation should have warm weather from Wednesday to Saturday, with the chance of rain somewhat higher in mountainous areas due to increased cloud coverage, he added.
Pleasant weather is expected during the holiday, except for a weak cold front forecast to pass over northern Taiwan on Friday and another on Monday next week, independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said.
The cold fronts would slightly strengthen the northeasterly winds, subsequently raising the chance of temporary showers along the north coast, as well as in the northeast and east of Taiwan, Wu said.
The rain would cause temperatures in these areas to drop only slightly, with changes in the low temperatures being minor, he said, adding that sunny skies were forecast for the rest of the nation.
In related news, Tropical Storm Sanba formed at 2pm yesterday east of the Philippines, the bureau said, but added that the storm would not directly affect Taiwan.
As of 2pm yesterday, the center of the storm was 2,360km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and was moving westward at 29kph.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods