The nation’s water shortage problem may continue as the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday that the plum rain season is expected to arrive late and bring less rain than normal.
The plum rain season officially starts tomorrow and normally lasts until the end of June.
The season was so named because the rain comes around the time when the plums south of China’s Yangtze River areas are about to ripen.
Rainfall in the plum rain season accounts for about 25 percent of the nation’s total annual rainfall.
Cheng Ming-dian (鄭明典), director of the bureau’s weather forecasting center, said historical data showed that plum rain has a tendency to arrive later than usual when it follows a La Nina year. While the nation would start seeing plum rain brought by a frontal system next week, Cheng said that people would not see heavier rain until after May 25.
The frontal system is forecast to approach the nation on Monday and last until Friday. However, the bureau said the system’s cloud structure is loose, adding that the rain would mostly fall on the sea rather than on land.
The forecasts brought no comfort to residents in Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli counties because the Water Resources Agency has already planned to further restrict the use of water in these areas. Specifically, the water supply to swimming pool and car wash operators will be cut by 20 percent, while industrial users will see their water supply reduced by 5 percent.
Cheng said the accumulated rainfall last month and this month was only a quarter of the climate average. His presentation also showed that the entire west coast has had below-average precipitation levels.
Average temperatures over the last two months were also the coldest recorded since 1971, Cheng said.
Cheng added that the bureau’s computer simulation analysis showed that the nation is likely to see a relatively drier plum rain season this year, as there is a 40 percent chance that average rainfall during the season would be below the average.
The bureau also said that there was still a 20 percent chance that rainfall during the plum rain season could exceed the average, which would require an extreme rain event.
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