It’s officially plum rain season, and sure enough, the first weather front of this year’s monsoon season arrived early Sunday morning. The precipitation occurred mostly in the northern half of the island in the first half of the day. It then moved south later on Sunday. The weather front won’t be lingering for long though; it is expected to pull away from the island on Tuesday. The Water Resources Agency seized the opportunity over the weekend to carry out artificial rainmaking, hoping to increase the water intake at three reservoirs.

Early Sunday morning, a weather front approached Taiwan proper. A strong convective cloud system brought scattered heavy rains in the central region, ushering in the first wave of weather front in the plum rain season. In the first half of Sunday, the rain concentrated in the northern half of the island, and the outlying islands of Penghu, Kinmen and the Matsu islands. In the second half of the day, the front moved south, bringing rain to the southern mountainous regions. The weather will still be unstable during the day on Monday. On Tuesday, the front will pull away from Taiwan.

Yeh Chih-chun
Central Weather Bureau forecaster
In areas north of central Taiwan, a convective cloud system has moved in from the strait, so we’re not ruling out the occurrence of some localized heavy rains. They will started to taper off Monday night, but the precipitation will only occur during daytime today and tomorrow. So in terms of boosting water supply, the rain’s effect will still be quite limited.

Wang Yi-feng
Water Resources Agency
This first wave of plum rains will bring about 4.49 million tons of rainfall, of which 1.1 million tons will benefit Techi Reservoir, the biggest beneficiary. Liyutan Reservoir and Sun Moon Lake Reservoir will each receive 1 million tons.

On Saturday morning, the Water Resources Agency seized the opportunity to carry out artificial rainmaking by burning chemicals in canisters at Shihmen Reservoir in Taoyuan and Second Baoshan Reservoir in Hsinchu. Similar attempts were made at Zengwen Reservoir and Jiaxian Weir by launching flares.

Meanwhile, at Sun Moon Lake, the precipitation has seen the capacity of the proverbial reservoir rising back up to 53.8%.

Voice of Hung Wen-lung
Daguan Power Plant
Last night it started to rain, and the water consumption downstream has been reduced. In a couple days, the water level will come back up.

Despite the rain, tourists were happy, because the rain was long-awaited. A local business operator said that a rainy Sun Moon Lake is now more beautiful than before.

Member of public
This is good for the farmers’ crops and land. Thank God for the rain.

Hotel operator
I think that once the water level rises, Sun Moon Lake will be beautiful in a different way, and of course, it’ll boost tourism.

The sustained high temperatures of recent weeks had led to the water level at the famed lake to drop by 7.4 meters. The timely rain is helping for now, but it remains to be seen what the next two days will bring.