Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/12/25
By: Chen Wei-ting and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, Dec. 25 (CNA) With no sign of a cold surge set to arrive in Taiwan in the final days of the year, 2017 will be the first year in nearly two decades not to experience a cold surge for the entire year, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said Monday.

A cold surge is said to have occurred when the lowest temperature in the Taipei metropolitan area falls to 10 degrees Celsius or lower, according to the CWB.

Cold surges in Taiwan usually arrive around New Year’s Day and tend to fall between Dec. 10 and Jan. 23 the next year, according to CWB forecaster Hsu Chung-yi (徐仲毅).

But no cold surges were recorded last winter (from late 2016 to early 2017), and none have been experienced so far this winter, Hsu said, meaning that 10 degree or lower temperatures in greater Taipei will have been absent for a full year for the first time since 2000.    [FULL  STORY]