Annual rainfall in Yilan’s Ximao Mountain approaches 10,000mm
The recent inclement weather has brought record rainfall to northeastern regions of the country, including Yilan’s Ximao Mountain, where 4,574 millimeters of rain fell in October alone. Forecasters say rain will continue until Friday, and seasonal winds will persist until Wednesday next week. Temperatures are also expected to drop to the mid teens by next week.
Northeasterly winds, combined with peripheral effects of a recent storm and typhoon, have brought extremely heavy rainfall to Yilan in recent days. Especially hard hit was this mountainous area, which has the highest accumulated rainfall nationwide so far this year.
A post on a Facebook page where people discuss typhoons in Taiwan brought attention to rainfall data collected on Yilan’s Ximao Mountain.
Total rainfall for October reached 4,574 millimeters. That’s the heaviest rainfall recorded by any weather station in Taiwan over the course of the month. Since the beginning of the year, the mountain has seen more than 9,500 millimeters of rain. One meteorologist says the area could see more than 10,000 millimeters before the year ends.
Chen Kao-chu
Yilan weather station
The peripheral effects of typhoons combined with northeasterlies both impacted local weather in the county. There’s also Datong Township in Nan’ao, where there is a windward mountain face that always gets rainfall. On some days more than 1,000 millimeters of rain will fall on that mountain.
Previously, the Central Weather Bureau had named Daping in New Taipei’s Wanli District as the rainiest place in Taiwan. The village gets an average of more than 6,500 millimeters of rain every year. Now that a weather station has been installed on Ximao Mountain, it could be a contender for rainiest place.
Liu Yu-chi
Forecaster
Information from both our manned weather station and our automatic weather sensors confirmed that October rainfall there was the highest. However, the Ximao weather station only has five years’ worth of weather data, and to really understand a location’s weather patterns we need to look at 30 years of data. That’s the only way to get a complete picture of the area’s climate.
As Ximao’s sensors have not been in place for very long, there is not enough historical data to determine whether Ximao could dethrone Daping as the rainiest place in Taiwan. Meanwhile, with rain continuing unabated in Yilan, Keelung and mountainous areas near Taipei, the weather bureau has been issuing heavy rainfall warnings.
Liu Yu-chi
Forecaster
The rain is likely to continue until Friday, and maybe throughout the weekend. There will be some rainfall all across Taiwan. Moisture will start to decrease, and by Monday we should start to see the rain dissipate.
By Wednesday or Thursday, the northeasterlies will begin to weaken and the weather will improve. However, northeasterly winds are expected to pick up again by the end of next week, bringing temperatures down to roughly 16 degrees until Sunday in the plains.
2022-11-02
