The temperature in Taitung County’s Dawu Township (大武) yesterday hit 39.7°C, the highest officially recorded in Taiwan so far this year, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said.
Recorded at 12:48pm, it was the third-highest temperature recorded by the Dawu Weather Station, behind 40.2°C and 40°C, both measured in 2020.
The bureau’s Web site showed a higher temperature of 40.1°C recorded yesterday in Tainan’s Beiliao (北寮), but bureau forecaster Chang Cheng-chuan (張承傳) said that measurement might have been affected by its surroundings and was not being treated as the year-to-date high.
Photo: Screen grab from the Central Weather Bureau
The Beiliao station uses an automatic measuring system that can lead to readings that are slightly off because of its higher margin of error, as opposed to the Dawu station readings, which are manually verified for accuracy, Chang said.
Early yesterday afternoon, the bureau forecast that temperatures would rise to 38°C in other places across the country during the day and issued heat alerts for 11 cities and counties in eastern, central and southern Taiwan.
The bureau, which uses a three-level heat advisory system, issued a “red” alert for Tainan, indicating that daytime highs could reach 38°C for three consecutive days.
It issued an “orange” heat advisory for Chiayi City, Kaohsiung and Chiayi, Pingtung, Hualien and Taitung counties, and a “yellow” heat alert for Taichung and Changhua, Nantou and Yunlin counties.
An orange warning means that temperatures are expected to reach 36°C for three days in a row, while a yellow alert refers to a one-day high of 36°C.
The bureau urged people participating in outdoor activities to stay hydrated and take precautionary measures to avoid sunburn from high levels of ultraviolet rays.
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