The Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded a temperature of minus-5.7°C at its weather monitoring station on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山), the nation’s highest mountain, early yesterday morning and observed hard rime there.
The mountain weather station had experienced poor visibility due to clouds and fog until Saturday night after a continental cold air mass arrived. The sky later turned clear with the mercury dropping to a low of minus-5.7°C early yesterday morning before climbing back up, the CWA said.
At 8am, the sky over the Yushan weather station was clear, and the temperature was recorded at minus-0.2°C, accompanied by hard rime, the CWA said.
Photo courtesy of the Yushan National Park Headquarters
With the cold air mass sweeping over Taiwan, the CWA has warned that roads at high elevations — above 3,000 meters — could be icy and that there would be frost and rime on mountains more than 3,000 meters high.
According to the agency’s Web site, frost and rime are ice crystals that look similar, but their formation process is different. Frost is formed by condensation of water vapor, while rime is formed from small, supercooled water droplets that freeze on contact with a cold surface.
The continental cold air mass brought temperatures below 10°C to parts of Taiwan yesterday morning, with the lowest recorded at 7.9°C in Nantou County’s Jhongliao Township (中寮) at 6:37am, the CWA said.
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