Places that are getting churned-into now (rain-wise) - Taidong, Hualien, Ilan - are gonna get churned into for the next couple of days - in a potentially escalating fashion. Cheng Gong up to Shih-ti-ping in northern Taidong is currently in the firing zone.

Totals are only (using Taiwan relativism) 150 mm today so far - but that will wind up being 250+ by midnight. Which by itself would be fine - but it's the ramping up from there that does the damage. In terms of landslides - the saturation of the ground primes the possibility up. If that's followed by an intense burst, that's when things start to give.

I'll be interested to see the rain totals in Kaohsiung, Pingdong in terms of the positioning of Krathon. Previously they've been smashed when typhoons enter the mid-east coast as the bands wrap around Taiwan up the strait, then slam into the south-west coast. That's why i'm thinking this might be the reverse of that effect - the rain still wraps around but unloads on the east coast.

Examples of direct eye-hits on Kaohsiung wouldn't be many - for sure it's happened, but i can only vaguely remember 1 or 2. Dan would know better. Southwest (like Ilan/Keelung) always finds a way to get pounded by typhoon rain - but it might be as much with the back-end when it emerges through Hualien as it is with the landfall. The old double-whammy.

Wind-wise, it's gonna be a near-record-level lashing in Kaohsiung - that seems clear.