Winter temperatures are likely to be higher on average than in recent years, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday, forecasting cooler weather from Friday next week.
Cooler temperatures next week are to be brought by northeastern winds, not a cold front, the bureau said, adding that winter is to start somewhat later than usual.
The first cold air mass usually arrives between Nov. 10 and Dec. 15, but there have been no indications that such a front would arrive soon, the bureau said.
Photo: Hsiao Yu-hsin, Taipei Times
A cold air mass, defined as a front that brings lows of at least 12°C to Taipei, would not arrive until the middle of this month, Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) said.
The first strong cold air mass, which brings lows of 10°C to Taipei, usually arrives between Nov. 22 and Dec. 31, he said.
A cold surge, a front that drives temperatures below 10°C in Taipei, usually arrives for the first time between Dec. 10 and Jan. 21, Lu said.
On Friday next week, strengthening northeastern winds are to bring rain and cooler weather, the bureau said, without issuing a temperature forecast.
From Sept. 1 to Wednesday, the average temperature across the country was 25.25°C, 0.37°C higher than the average over the same period last year, the bureau said.
In related news, the coral reefs in Dongsha Atoll National Park are in a stable condition, but need time to fully recover from typhoon damage, the Marine National Park Headquarters said.
The agency said it and the Dongsha Atoll Research Station at National Sun Yat-sen University in October undertook an annual coral health survey, which showed that average coral cover was 62.3 percent around the atoll and 51 percent in the lagoon, with 50 percent cover considered healthy.
Part of the survey was conducted two weeks after Super Typhoon Mangkhut passed over Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島) on its way to Hong Kong from the Philippines, the agency said.
The timing enabled it to learn more about how typhoons affect coral reefs, it said, adding that coral cover on the atoll’s windward side drastically decreased from more than 70 percent to about 40 percent.
Although typhoons can devastate coral habitats, they also bring cooler seawater and balance its ecosystem in summer, when the water temperature is higher and can cause coral bleaching, it said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching