Guess 01 was that thing that went through about a month ago, but since this is the first named typhoon of the season, it probably deserves a thread. Interestingly there's been a pretty dramatic upgrading in the last 24 hours - winds now expected to gust up to 100kts - that's getting pretty decent for March. Previously it wasn't forecast to get past TS strength.

Hope we score some 'drift up' rain out of it - looks quite possible from the sat loop.

It's interesting to see how this rain pattern follows almost exactly the borders of Taidong. Do you know how the borders are defined in Taiwan - are they rivers, mountain ridges or a mixture of both? Whatever, they seemed to come into play with that nice piece of weather last night.

That is interesting. Is it a fluke or is that a regular pattern? I have no idea how the counties were defined, but a good site for historical information is http://www.takaoclub.com. Well, I actually don't know how 'good' the site is for information, but it has some great old pictures and it might contain some info on this issue.