A squall line caused heavy rainfall along the west coast from Saturday night until early yesterday, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
The narrow band of high winds and storms that form along or ahead of a cold front can bring heavy precipitation, hail, lightning and possibly tornadoes or waterspouts.
The squall line also brought the heavy rain that fell on early Friday morning and afternoon, the bureau said.
Photo: CNA
Arriving in the nation between Hsinchu and Miaoli counties, yesterday’s squall line produced 98mm of rainfall in three hours, it said.
Squall lines typically form when there are alternating masses of cold and warm air, with the band of storms varying in length from 50km to 100km, or even longer than 200km, the bureau said, adding that the length does not correlate with the intensity of the rainfall.
Weatherrisk Explore chief executive officer Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) said its monitoring system showed that lightning occurred 42,215 times from 9pm on Saturday to 6am yesterday.
Cloud-to-ground lightning struck 1,386 times, while the others were cloud-to-cloud lightning, he said.
The bureau said that it expects the cold front to bring intervals of rainfall to the west coast and north today, although the chance of heavy rainfall would be lower due to decreasing humidity.
Cloudy to sunny skies are forecast for most of the nation for tomorrow through Thursday, although the chance of afternoon showers remains high on the east coast and in mountainous areas on the west coast, it said.
Isolated showers are forecast in central and southern Taiwan during the early morning hours due to a convergence of southwesterly wind and wind on land, it added.
On Wednesday and Thursday, residents in the southeast should be aware of health hazards due to high temperatures, the bureau said.
However, the humidity is to rise again on Friday and Saturday, bringing isolated showers in the north and east, the bureau said, adding that cloudy to sunny skies with afternoon showers are forecast for the rest of the nation.
In other news, the bureau said that two moderate earthquakes yesterday afternoon shook Yilan County.
A magnitude 3.9 earthquake occurred at 4:09pm, hitting 6.7km east-northeast of the Yilan County Government’s offices at a depth of 9.9km, data from the Seismology Center showed.
The earthquake’s intensity — which gauges the actual effect of a temblor — was highest in Yilan City, where it measured 3 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale.
A magnitude 3.8 quake occurred six minutes later at 4:15pm in about the same location.
It was centered 6.8km east-northeast of the Yilan County Government’s offices and occurred at a depth of 10.1km.
Its highest intensity was in Nanao Township (南澳), where it measured 4, and it registered an intensity of 3 in Yilan City, the data showed.
The two earthquakes were also felt slightly in Taipei, about 40km northwest of their epicenters.
Additional reporting by CNA
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