Seasonal northeasterly winds are gathering momentum and are to become most evident today when temperatures could fall to as low as 12°C, the Central Weather Bureau said yesterday.
With little moisture left in the weather system, the bureau expects cool temperatures for northern and central Taiwan in the coming days, especially today.
Temperatures in northern and central Taiwan today are expected to fall to 14°C — even dipping to 12°C or 13°C in open, rural areas — while temperatures in the south might fall to 16°C, the bureau said.
Photo courtesy of Facebook page Taiwan Snow Chasing Group
Temperatures could rise by about 1°C on Friday, before the seasonal winds begin to weaken on Saturday, it added.
Wu Der-rong (吳德榮), a former bureau director and now a professor of atmospheric sciences at National Central University, said that temperatures might fall to 12°C in low-lying areas early this morning due to cold winds and radiative cooling effects.
Mostly sunny skies are possible between today and Sunday due to reduced moisture, Wu added.
Photo: Courtesy of Chiang Wu-ming
However, starting on Monday next week, northern and eastern Taiwan are likely to see sporadic rain showers, while central and southern Taiwan would have more stable weather conditions, Wu said.
Early yesterday, the northeasterly winds and abundant moisture resulted in the first hail of this winter on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, staff members of the Hehuanshan Forest Recreation Area said.
The hail — which form when super-cooled water droplets collect and freeze on falling snowflakes — first fell at 7:10am and continued falling until 8am, the staff members said.
However, the hail were accompanied by rain showers, so there was only a thin accumulation of ice, they added.
The bureau receives only limited data regarding precipitation on the 3,422m-tall mountain, as it does not have weather personnel stationed there.
Bureau data showed that the temperature at the peak was 3.9°C at about midnight on Tuesday and dropped to 1°C by 7am yesterday, with clouds and occasional rain.
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