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July2017Weather diary page Taidong, July 5: Just saw a sky flash, which is nothing unusual - there has been lightning around the past few days - but thought it had a slight blue tinge - then went to check CWB's lightning map and... nothing there. Guess it's possible it just didn't register, but having seen earthquake lightning during the event here in Dec, it makes me wonder - supposedly it can appear before a quake, not just during it. Appeared to be coming from behind the ocean ridge looking north - maybe mid-north Rift Valley? Anyway, probably nothing. Had some isolated showers in the first days of July - tail fragments of a weak typhoon that went to Japan - very hit or miss - there was one that missed by 100 metres - I could hear it raining, loudly, and went out to watch it come in...was even videoing it... but it never did quite make it. As a result though, summer has been almost bearable - if no rain, a bit of cloud cover at least Istachatta July 14: Typical summer weather pattern of hot days, afternoon showers, coolish nights. Daily highs in low 90's (33-35C) night lows in low 70's (22-24C). Haven't seen as many gopher tortoise this year, but that could just be due to being out at different hours. Istachatta July 18: Pineapple are sweeter this year. Fewer and sweeter. Must be the drier winter and spring. We just started getting regular rains about 3 weeks ago, and today I saw what looks like a pineapple budding! I've already harvested one. How odd. The banana spiders are so few this year that I've decided to name those around the house. So far we're up to C: Abigail, Bertha, and Clementine. Taidong July 27: Noticed your spiders all have girls' names - is that a coincidence? Been hot and dry here - the hard yards. Instituted a plan to dial down the action this summer and that has helped Burt still... Even tried a full 'pivot' manoeuvre which involved doing my drinking in the morning - in theory this would open up a wider window of time in the evening to get outside and do things... Phoenix tree in record bloom - looks amazing One wu hwan jhih tree is producing the soap berries - started early July same as last year Still getting a few tomatoes incredibly and seems birds have lost interest in eating them - carrots, spring onion, capsicum still going - lots of eggplant - chilis are turning red Grey magpies - a lot - and a squirrel have started to use the birdbath Have recently seen a couple of first time birds on the land - a rufous backed oriole and an astonishing blue bird - either a broad billed roller or a blue-winged pita - definitely one of those two - at the same time saw two bamboo chicken - very close and didn't seem too bother by me - down near old chook shed which is overgrown with lu-tsao and thus is shady and cool Typhoon is predicted make a direct hit on Taidong in 48 hrs - very similar situation and track to last year's nepartak - all week it was predicted to go north and just a question of whether it would clip Taipei or slide past - then suddenly the track moved down to Hualien today and then Taidong city. Not predicted to be as big as nepartak and hopefully stays that way Pair of earthquakes today on same fault as our Dec 15 one. One south of Orchid island and the other near green island. This was the same sequence that resulted in out quake so interesting to see if we get one Taidong, July 31: Bit of a balls up by CWB with their track of Nesat - had it making landfall around Cheng Gong in a matter of hours even as the radar was showing that it was clearly going due north up the coast. Finally pulled in just south of Ilan city and surprised the shit out of everyone there with powerful winds . Heaviest rain fell on the south west peninsula in Pingdong - around 600 mm on the night, including a staggering 188mm in a single hour. Remarkably, another typhoon hit that exact location the following night though the worst rain was on the other side of the peninsula which had 700mm, while the south west side got another 400 to take their total to 1000mm. Again CWB struggled to predict the path even an hour ahead and at one stage had it hugging the Taiwan east coast all the way to Taipei. They also had it going to a bunch of other places and it looked like they were playing spin the bottle each time their 24hr track came out Anyway, remarkable couple of days - doubt that it's ever happened before - Taiwan being hit by two different typhoons on consecutive nights. In the end they caused floods or landslides in Pingdongn (both nights), Ilan (first night), Kaohsiung, and Tainan (2nd night). In Taidong, despite being the designated target twice, it actually turned out pretty well - first one was nothing much as it went past - a little rain - 20mm maybe - then the second one we got wind from south west and about 100mm - which was a great result - a nice drenching rain and cooler temps without any of the destruction Another 4.1 quake near Green Island last night but didn't feel anything here - definitely a pattern forming along the southern part of that fault |