This year’s plum rain season is to be warmer than usual, while rainfall amounts are likely to be within the normal range, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
The plum rain season generally occurs in May and June, and is named after its coincidence with the ripening of plums in southern China, the bureau said.
Heavy rains during the season are caused by stationary fronts that hover above southern China, Taiwan and Japan’s Ryukyu Islands, it added.
Photo courtesy of the Central Weather Bureau
A typical plum rain front is formed when the atmosphere is influenced by the southwest monsoon, Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) said.
“Stationary fronts arrive with the southwest monsoon, often facilitating the occurrence of large-scale and heavy precipitation,” he said.
The plum rain season in northern Taiwan generally begins in the first half of May, while southern Taiwan usually does not experience plum rains until the second half of May, bureau data showed.
This year, heavy rainfall brought by plum rain fronts is likely to affect the entire nation in the first half of this month, a phenomenon that has happened five or six times throughout the nation’s history, Lu said.
The bureau had previously forecast that the first plum rain front was to arrive today, but Lu said that the front is to be moving, not stationary.
Last year, a typical plum rain front did not appear until June 5, marking its latest arrival, Lu said, adding that the timing of its arrival is not correlated with the amount of rainfall that is to occur during the season.
After examining its own data, as well as forecasts from other weather agencies around the world, the bureau forecast that Taiwan is likely to see a warmer plum rain season this year, while the amount of rainfall is to be within the normal range, Lu said.
Rain this month would be within the normal range or slightly more than average, while next month would see rainfall within the normal range or slightly less than average, it said, adding that the weather in July would be dry and hot.
Plum rains have caused some damage in the past few years, as stationary fronts often lead to more intense and stronger rainfall, Lu said, adding that this has also created a challenge for weather forecasters.
Starting today, the bureau is to provide rainfall forecasts every three hours whenever it detects that large-scale, heavy precipitation is to occur, including rainfall forecasts for each city and county within 24 hours and for the next three days, it said.
Meanwhile, the nation experienced a warmer and dryer spring this year, with an average temperature from February to Sunday of 22.23°C, higher than the average of 20.51°C over the period, bureau data showed.
The average rainfall recorded at weather observatories across the country was 280.8mm, below the average of 348.08mm over the period, the bureau said.
Fifteen stations recorded their highest-ever spring temperature, it added.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
Taiwan is doing everything it can to prevent a military conflict with China, including building up asymmetric defense capabilities and fortifying public resilience, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said in a recent interview. “Everything we are doing is to prevent a conflict from happening, whether it is 2027 or before that or beyond that,” Hsiao told American podcaster Shawn Ryan of the Shawn Ryan Show. She was referring to a timeline cited by several US military and intelligence officials, who said Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take military action against Taiwan
RSS