A weather system from southern China has over the past three days replenished Taiwan’s reservoirs with almost 16 million tonnes of water, giving Taiwan a slight relief from a water shortage, the Water Resources Agency (WRA) said yesterday.
From 12am on Tuesday to 4pm yesterday, about 15.97 million tonnes fell in the catchment areas of the nation’s reservoirs, which is slightly more than Taiwan’s average daily water use, it said.
However, the rain would ease today, with only isolated showers forecast in Hualien and Taitung counties, as well as in southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.
Photo: Ou Su-mei, Taipei Times
For other regions, cloudy to sunny skies are forecast, with isolated afternoon showers in mountainous areas, the bureau added.
Between noon on Tuesday and 4:20pm yesterday, the bureau’s observation station at National Taiwan University registered the highest accumulated rainfall of 115.5mm, bureau data showed.
Other stations that registered high rainfall were mostly in Hsinchu County, the bureau said.
“The nation had significant spring rainfall in the past two days. We should welcome this development,” CWB Director-General Cheng Ming-dean (鄭明典) wrote on Facebook. “However, it did not ease the water shortage problems facing the nation.”
Cloudy to sunny skies are to continue in most parts of the nation from tomorrow to Tuesday next week, with temporary showers forecast on the east coast and in mountainous areas.
The next rain front is forecast to arrive on Wednesday next week, with high chances of isolated showers in the northern and northeastern Taiwan, as well as in mountainous areas in the nation’s central and southern areas, the CWB said.
Today, the bureau is scheduled to announce its forecast for the plum rain season next month and in June.
This year, Taiwan might record the lowest spring rainfall in the past 75 years, with the bureau’s 13 observation stations across the nation reporting an average accumulated rainfall of 125.9mm from Feb. 1 to Tuesday last week, which is 43 percent of the average for that period, bureau data showed.
Average accumulated rainfall in February was 53.9mm, which was about 55 percent of that month’s average, it showed.
In March, the average rainfall dropped to 50.7mm, 53 percent of that month’s average, the data showed.
From April 1 to Tuesday last week, nearly all observation stations on the west coast recorded virtually no rain.
No rain was recorded in Tainan, while Taipei, Hsinchu City and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水) recorded less than 1mm of accumulated rainfall, it showed.
Observation stations in Taichung, Kaohsiung, and Pingtung, Nantou and Penghu counties reported “traces of rain,” the bureau said.
The accumulated rainfall in Taipei between Feb. 1 and Tuesday last week was 124.5mm, less than 30 percent of the average for the period, the data showed.
It was the second-lowest spring rainfall recorded since the observation station was established in 1897, the bureau said.
A debt dispute between a restaurant owner and a criminal ring might be behind a bizarre cockroach attack at the Taipei eatery on Monday night while it was hosting a police gathering, Taipei Police Commissioner Chen Jia-chang (陳嘉昌) said yesterday. Preliminary findings of a police investigation into the case at the G House Taipei suggest that the unusual incident might have been directed at the restaurant’s owner, who allegedly owes money to the Bamboo Union, Chen said. The suspects were Bamboo Union members and there was no evidence indicating that the cockroaches were targeted at the police officers at the restaurant, he
Taiwan’s armed forces should closely monitor China’s development of a new tanker aircraft, as it would significantly boost the Chinese air force’s capability to carry out long-range raids, a military expert said on Wednesday. Ou Si-fu (歐錫富), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said in an online article that China is developing a tanker variant of its Y-20 military transport aircraft, known as the Y-20U. The Y-20 has a maximum take-off weight of 220 tonnes and the tanker variant is expected to carry up to 60 tonnes of fuel, more than three times the maximum
QUARANTINE BLUNDER: The government should be responsible for a cluster infection at a hotel, as the cases have caused panic, DPP Legislator Chen Ming-wen said The Ministry of Transportation and Communications should make it mandatory for pilots and flight attendants, as well as their family members, to be vaccinated in view of a cluster of COVID-19 cases at the Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport hotel, lawmakers said at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday. The cluster infection at the hotel had led to 28 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday, including hotel workers, as well as China Airlines flight and cabin crew, and their family members. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday tightened quarantine requirements for pilots and flight attendants, who must quarantine
TRAVELING WHILE CONTAGIOUS: The highest risk of infection is indoors, especially in settings where people take off their masks to eat and drink, an expert warned The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday posted a list of places visited by people who were recently diagnosed with COVID-19 while they were likely contagious, urging people who visited the sites at the same time to practice self-health management. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that confirmed case No. 1,129 — a woman in her 60s who works at Novotel Taipei Taoyuan International Airport, a designated quarantine facility, and tested positive on Friday — visited Chiayi between Friday last week and Monday. On the first day of her trip, she visited the Big Chiayi
RSS