Taiwan received only 78.5 hours of sunshine last month, about half the average for May, due to the frequent arrival of rain fronts during the plum rain season, the Central Weather Bureau told a news conference yesterday.
It was also the lowest number of sunshine hours the bureau has recorded for May, bureau Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) said.
The plum rain season this year began around the middle of last month after the summer monsoon started affecting the South China Sea, Lu said.
Photo: CNA
The Pacific high-pressure system, a dominant influence in summer, had been weak from then until the middle of this month, Lu said, adding that summer did not begin in Taiwan until the second half of this month.
This year’s plum rain season was different from that of last year, as three rain fronts arrived on May 12, May 23 and June 3, Lu said.
“Each front brought rain that lasted for about four to five days, lowering temperatures nationwide,” he said.
Days of rain further shortened sunshine hours last month from the average of 148.8 hours to only 78.5 hours, Lu said.
The average amount of rainfall last month and this month so far is about 497.2mm, which is within the normal range, Lu said.
“Overall, rainfall in the north was more than that in the south, while rainfall last month exceeded that of this month,” Lu said.
The average amount of rainfall during the plum rain season generally reaches about 450mm to 500mm, which is about 20 percent of the total rainfall throughout the year, the bureau said.
Last month’s rainfall was the sixth-highest for May, while the number of rainy days last month was the fourth highest.
The bureau’s weather stations on Pengjia Islet (彭佳嶼), at Anbu (鞍部) and in Keelung also recorded the highest amount of rainfall for May since their establishment, Lu said.
The average temperature last month was 26.2°C, the fifth-lowest temperature on record for May, he said, adding that it was also the lowest average temperature in May recorded since 2000.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS