From June 16 to Oct 14, there have only been 8 rain events of 10mm or more. And those are meant to be the wettest months. Averages have been down, but the most noticeable thing seems to be the extended time between drinks. Coming during a taidong summer this infrequency of relief adds an extra layer of harshness to the climate.

This compares with 17 10mm+ rain events in the same period last year.

We are now over 3 weeks without rain. That's about as long as i've seen it stay dry here and nothing forecast until a low possibly crosses to the south of taiwan next week.

finally some rain yesterday and a chance again today but this again shows the demarcation line for rain on the east coast.

Another, older example:

We haven't had any significant rain in Kaohsiung since August. At this point, we won't get any until a major cold front moves through, which happens maybe twice a winter. We can easily go four months without a drop of rain. And yet, the trees stay green!

yeah, i can't understand that either. I did see some weed die-back on the weekend when i drove up to Taipei, but the trees are remarkably resilient. How do the farmers survive - they must have good irrigation systems.

looks like we might get something today despite CWB's predictions. Of course it would have to happen on the weeekend when i want to do the market.

Here's the view of a river near Sandimen. You can see how wide it is much of the year. It's almost bone dry at the moment, which is not unusual this time of year. In fact this is the only time of year that it's safe to walk up the river due to frequent flash floods during the rainy season.

Might be normal over there but we are having a seriously dry year. 500mm below ave for the year and only 5 relatively dry weeks to go. And most of the rain we did get came in just three events.

Finally getting something from a typhoon passing thorugh ppe - has a weakish outflow that is bringing moderate rain this way - 20mm so far. Oddly, CWB, which has us at it's usual 30%, is also giving a heavy rain alert for taidong. Also checked Accuweather and Weather Underground for Taidong - the presentation is really slick, but both have Taidong as fine tonight with 'scattered cloud'. It's been raining on and off all day and is still raining. So, hard to find accurate weather forecasts for this area. With the typhoon and it's outflow happening, i wouldn't have thought the weather was a big mystery here at the moment.

Monday also looks interesting - cold front coming down from the north and it should bring big winds and hopefully some rain.

Meanwhile, here in Kaohsiung, it's still almost summer-like, with highs nearing 30 every day. The poor air quality doesn't help. Hopefully this cold front predicted for next week will finally cool things down here. Rain would be nice, but that's probably asking too much. Even a drizzle would be welcome.

You might be lucky and get some kick up from that typhoon to the south mixed in with the cold front when it comes. We had a a good, garden watering rain here - 22 mil - but still hot - 30 C. This would have to be one of the hottest Nov's on record.