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Weather diary page

July 1-2: Hot. Very clear day today, very strong sun, very typical summer weather.
July 3: Hotter than yesterday. There's a low pressure system over the Philippines that hopefully bring us some rain in the next few days.Strong red hue around the moon last night (moonrise was astonishingly beautiful)- let's hope that is a sign of rain.
July 4: Moonrise again astonishingly beautiful. The ocean has been unusually calm the last few days. It was kicking up a bit more today, but still very mellow. Very humid day with no breeze until evening, and now we're getting only a very slight one. Nothing at all is washing up on the beaches in DH. There must be a lot of stuff floating around out there that will come to shore soon.
July 5: Finally had a very brief but welcome shower in the evening.
July 6: Comforting southern winds blew most of the day, though it's still very hot, too hot to do much of anything between 10:00 and 15:00 unless you're in the shade. The ocean has been very calm. Why is that? I'll have to ask the next surfer I see.
July 7-11: Just hot. No rain, little wind, calm ocean, and hot. And there's absolutely nothing on the weather-chart horizon that suggests this pattern is going to change soon. There are no storms at all in the western Pacific. This reminds me of other years in which we had early storms that came close to us, suggesting that maybe this would be an active summer, only to have things go dead calm for weeks on end. Still, typhoon season hasn't really started yet, so who knows what's in store. One thing is for sure though, this July, so far, has been nothing but hot.
July 12-16: Continued hot, with intermittent periods of really hot. Today is the first day for a long time that we've had just a hint of clouds, but it helps. Grasses and other low leafy plants in open areas are starting to wilt.
July 18: Finally some relief in the way of clouds. Systems are in the area with one due to start affecting us this weekend. After that system, they're lining up so it looks like this first real, maybe, possible system of the year will signal the end of incessant sun and heat.
July 22: Rain from low pressure passing to the south of Taiwan finally began yesterday. Low pressure was already to the south west of TW before rain started but tail extends up through TW and is dragging the rain into the southern and central sections of the island - north remained dry. Approx 80 ml at XC over the two days, but just north in Dong He, according to CWB, they have received in excess of 160ml just today. In fact DH has the highest rainfall for TW. Marked difference in comfort level - much cooler.
July 23: Heavy, fairly constant rain last night in DH. Nice breezy day so far with very little rain, although more is expected later.
July 31: Typhoon Saola is sitting SE of us, nearly directly east of the southern tip of Taiwan, heading NW very, very slowly. It's been practically stationary for the last day. We've been getting increasingly regular but still intermittent showers in DH. Showers started yesterday and it looks like this system could affect us for at least three or four days to come.
July 31: My rain guage only registered 122ml for July, which is well below ave. Included 3 weeks of baking heat without rain. However, CWB is saying there was 315ml. There was one day of heavy rain (128) that didn't hit XC (39ml)as hard as other areas so assume that makes up most of the discrepancy.