A plum rain front is to linger over Taiwan proper through tomorrow, bringing highly unstable weather and chances of strong rainfall across the nation, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday.
In particular, residents of western and northeastern Taiwan as well as mountainous areas in southern Taiwan should take precautions, forecasters said.
Daniel Wu (吳德榮), a former CWB Weather Forecast Center director who is an adjunct associate professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University, said that while the front might ease the nation’s prolonged water shortage, it might also cause flooding and mudslides.
Photo: Huang Hsu-lei, Taipei Times
Meanwhile, Water Resources Agency (WRA) Deputy Director-General Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰) said that heavy rains throughout Taiwan on Friday lead to rising water levels at some reservoirs, but did not replenish the reserves in central and southern Taiwan.
The rainfall was concentrated in Keelung, Taipei and New Taipei City, with Yilan County, Taoyuan and Taichung receiving less rain, Wang said.
New Taipei City’s Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) benefited the most from the downpours, with its level increasing from 69 percent to 75.02 percent of capacity from midnight on Thursday to 9pm on Friday, WRA data showed.
The water volume at Taoyuan’s Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) increased to about 2.28 million cubic meters, or 19.21 percent of capacity, up from 17.26 percent before the rains, it showed.
The level at Keelung’s Sinshan Reservoir (新山水庫) rose to 87.47 percent of capacity, the data showed.
Nantou County’s Sun Moon Lake Reservoir (日月潭) and Wushe Reservoir (霧社水庫) were the only ones outside northern Taiwan where the levels rose, while most other reservoirs in the south did not receive additional water, the data showed.
Due to the months without substantial rainfall, mostly affecting western regions from Taoyuan to Pingtung County, water reserves in many major reservoirs have fallen to below 10 percent of capacity, prompting local government’s to restrict supply to households and industrial users
To date, water supply to households in Taichung, Miaoli County and parts of Changhua County is restricted to five days per week.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai