The heavy downpours that have been drenching northern Taiwan this week are expected to continue throughout today and into tomorrow, as a low-pressure system east of the country is bringing more moisture, forecasters said.
The heavy rain is not likely to ease until Saturday, although it would not stop entirely, Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecaster Liu Pei-teng (劉沛滕) said today.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Currently, the windward areas of greater Taipei, Taoyuan and Yilan County are experiencing the heaviest rainfall, which is categorized by the CWA as torrential, he said.
Extremely heavy to torrential rain is expected to continue throughout the day today in the greater Taipei area and northern Keelung, as well as in Yilan County, with a chance of easing during the night, Liu said.
The CWA today issued rain advisories for mountainous areas of Taipei and New Taipei City, including Wuzhishan (五指山) and Dongshan (東山) in Sijhih District (汐止), warning of torrential to extremely torrential rainfall during the day.
Advisories were also issued for northern Keelung, Taipei and Yilan County, which are expected to see extremely heavy to torrential rain, while other parts of Keelung, New Taipei City and Taoyuan are likely to experience heavy or extremely heavy rain, the CWA said.
People in those areas are advised to be aware of the risk of landslides, rockfalls, mudflows and flash floods, the CWA said.
Under the CWA's rain advisories, torrential rain is defined as accumulated rainfall of 350mm or more within 24 hours, while extremely torrential rain means accumulated rainfall of 500mm or more over a 24-hour period.
Heavy rain is defined as accumulated rainfall of 80mm or more within a 24-hour period or 40mm or more in an hour, while extremely heavy rain refers to accumulated rainfall of 200mm or more within 24 hours.
The CWA has attributed the recent heavy downpours to the influence of the northeast monsoon and a low-pressure system east of the country.
While there is little chance that the system would develop into a storm, it is likely to cause continued heavy precipitation in northern Taiwan, Liu said.
However, a former head of the CWA has forecast that the system may develop into a storm.
Radar imagery shows strong convection that seems to be tightening at the center of the system, Cheng Ming-tien (鄭明典) said in a Facebook post.
If that continues for another cycle, the "small low pressure system could become a typhoon," he said.
Meanwhile, temperatures would be cool today, with highs of 22°C to 31°C across Taiwan, the CWA said.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS