The nation’s east and south are set for heavy rainfall brought by Tropical Storm Linfa today and tomorrow, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday.
Bureau data showed the center of the storm was about 330km southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) at 5:30pm yesterday, with a radius of 120km.
The storm was moving northeasterly at -10kph. A land alert could be issued early this morning, the bureau said.
The bureau issued a sea warning for Linfa at 8:30am yesterday, which applied to vessels operating in the Bashi Channel (巴士海峽) — a waterway between Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and the Philippines’ northernmost province of Batanes — and the south of the Taiwan Strait.
Previously, the bureau forecast the storm would skirt the east coast without making landfall. However, Linfa changed its path and the storm is now forecast to hit the southwest coast.
Based on Linfa’s projected path displayed on the bureau’s Web site, the storm is due to hit the southwest coast before moving northwesterly away from Taiwan on Thursday. The bureau said it was not yet known whether the eye of the storm would make landfall.
Photo: CNA
The bureau said the storm was first guided by a high-pressure system over the Pacific Ocean. However, the storm lost its guiding air stream after passing the island of Luzon in the Philippines, with the east wind brought by the high-pressure system merging with the southwesterly wind from the South China Sea.
The bureau said the merging of the two weather systems not only slowed down the movement of the storm, but also made it difficult to predict its projected path. As a result, the time that the storm is likely to make landfall in Taiwan and the area that would be affected could still change, the bureau said.
A similar situation occurred last year with Tropical Storm Fung-Wong (鳳凰), which hovered off the west coast of the island of Luzon for about 12 hours before slowly moving northward. Due to its slow movement, meteorologists first forecast that the storm would skirt Taiwan’s east coast on its way northward, but later changed the forecast, saying it would move through the Hengchun Peninsula and the southwest coast.
However, Fung-Wong eventually turned eastward before reaching the Hengchun Peninsula and moved northward along the nation’s east coast.
Factors that could affect how Linfa moves include a high-pressure system in the north, a high-pressure system in the Pacific Ocean and Tropical Storm Chan-Hom — which is about 2,500km east of Taiwan.
With Linfa approaching Taiwan, a balloon festival in Taitung was canceled yesterday, and operators of ferries running from Taitung to Green Island (綠島) and Orchid Island gave notice that all services would be suspended from today through Friday.
The operators said they would decide whether to resume services on Saturday, depending on the weather conditions.
Additional reporting by CNA
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