The country will likely experience a warmer winter this year as the El Nino effect persists, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
The bureau yesterday made public its climate outlook for winter, which generally lasts from December to February in Taiwan.
Temperatures this month will be warmer than in previous Decembers, the bureau predicted, while more rain is expected in the western part of the island in February next year.
Since August, the water temperature in the eastern Pacific Ocean has exceeded the mean seasonal temperature by 0.5oC, said Daniel Wu (
Ascribing the rise in temperatures to the El Nino phenomenon, Wu added that the winter in Japan and some Southeast Asian countries will also be affected by the warming of the ocean.
Since 1980, Taiwan has experienced eight years in which the El Nino effect has had a strong impact on climate change.
Wu said that the phenomenon did not necessarily create identical effects every year.
It led to higher rainfall figures in February 1998, for example, while less rain fell in the same month in 2002. This shows that other factors interact with the El Nino phenomenon to create different effects, Wu said.
He said that El Nino affects the average monthly temperature, which means that low daily temperatures could still occur as frigid air masses move over the country.
The bureau predicted that the mercury will drop to 20oC today as the force of the seasonal wind from the northeast continues to increase.
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