This one can't seem to decide whether or not to be a typhoon.  Here's the latest sat. image.

But for a real treat, click on agora.ex.nii.ac.jp/digital-typhoon/latest/animation/MPEG-2/last-240h.mpg and download a 240-hour (not in real time, obviously) animated Pacific activity image (don't worry, it's clean).  You can watch Kalmaegi stomp around right up to about 4am today (Thursday).

Typhoon or no typhoon, it's going to be a rainy weekend.

Thanks for the forecast John. Let's hope you are like the regular meteorologists so we can enjoy a nice sunny weekend. Hahah!!!

Not a chance.  The word on the street (and the information from the weather sites) is that she ripened up nicely, and became a pert little depression.  Yes, 09W is due to flirt provocatively by the Southern half of the island sometime late sunday.
I'm taking bets for monday being the first typhoon day in...what, 2 years?

What are the odds?

Oooooooh. it has a  funny tail and head now. Cool. I prefer blue myself.

Yes please give me the odds. Tainan+typhoon day = no chance.

Was it really two years ago the last typhoon day? Crikey how time flies.

Actually it was a turn of phrase. I wouldn't know how to describe some realistic odds (I'm not SO British). Anyway, I would think twice about putting any money against it; I think she might be a big fat bitch come Monday.

Fung Wong then.  Not as good as Long Wang; my favourite typhoon name.  What is that?  'Girl Dragon'?

The post above is mine, I didn't realise I wasn't signed in.  And in case you think it has poor grammar, it's because a word that means female dog was mysteriously deleted.  I didn't think it was so bad.

Hahaha. Sorry. There are like 4 words that can't be entered. You found out one of them.

The government site that says when / where offices and schools are closed for a typhoon is here.

It's in Chinese, but look out for 台南巿 in the second set of green lines, and this means no classes: 停止上課

But check with your school if in doubt.

Just about everywhere has announced a typhoon day tomorrow, although not Tainan yet.  It looks pretty certain though.  I'm going to have a few beers and hope that I don't have to get up in the morning.

I should have taken your money.

Drink beer Tainaners; for tomorrow we will sleep in.  It's official.  Long live Ma-Ing-Jo and the delivery on his pre-election promise to send more cat.3 or greater tropical systems (on a weekday if possible).  Ganbei my friend, I raise my Kirin to you. 

Still looks a bit calm out there though eh.

I remember 2 typhoons where everything was canceled.  The next day was calm.  Here's hoping for that tomorrow as well. 

Not just hoping, expecting it!  I did celebrate though.  Beautiful night too!

Finally a day off....feels like heaven. 

TAIPEI (AFP) Typhoon Fung-wong churned towards China Monday after it slammed into Taiwan, leaving one dead, six injured and forcing the closure of schools and offices across the battered island.

The typhoon, which had earlier wreaked havoc in the Philippines, made landfall on Taiwan's eastern coast early in the day, bringing fierce winds and heavy rains to many parts of the island, the Central Weather Bureau said.

It severely disrupted travel, caused the stock market to close and saw thousands of homes have their power cut off before roaring toward China's southeastern Fujian province.

A 68-year-old man died in southeastern Taitung county when the gale-force winds blew him off the roof of his home, which he had been trying to repair during the storm, the National Fire Agency said.

Of the six people hurt, four of them lived in the capital Taipei, said the agency which coordinates rescue missions here.

The downpours flooded Shoufeng, in eastern Hualien county, causing chaos among the 20,000 population.

"The typhoon introduced so much rainfall in the morning that it could not be taken by the existing drainage system so the streets were flooded," Chiu Mei-shu, head of Shoufeng, told AFP.

She said the flooding measured up to 70 centimetres (28 inches), but subsided after the rain stopped in the afternoon.

Railway traffic was halted and dozens of flights cancelled as winds of up to 119 kilometres (71.4 miles) per hour swirled, uprooting trees.

All domestic flights and 56 international flights were scrapped, the Civil Aeronautics Administration told AFP. High-speed rail services were also suspended, though a partial service was to resume at 1100 GMT.

The state-run Taiwan Power Co said electricity had been cut off to more than 150,000 households island-wide, and that fierce winds forced the company to lower the operation of the two generators at a nuclear plant in the north.

President Ma Ying-jeou urged residents to beware the possible danger of floods and mudslides, saying: "We must maintain a high level of vigilance."

Hundreds of residents were evacuated from eastern coastal villages before the storm made landfall, and thousands of fishing boats were ordered to return to port.

Authorities put 425 rivers on their alert list for possible flash floods.

At 6:00 pm (1000 GMT), the eye of the typhoon was around 170 kilometres south of Matsu, a Taiwan-controlled island off China's Fujian province.

The storm was losing steam as it swept across the Taiwan Strait towards the mainland, said forecasters at the Central Weather Bureau.

The bureau had come under fire from the public, the media and Ma for underestimating the impact of tropical storm Kalmaegi, which struck the island earlier this month, leaving 20 people dead and six others missing.

Three people went missing in the northern Philippines at the weekend when Fung-wong brushed past the northern tip of the main island of Luzon, causing widespread flooding, landslides and power outages, rescue officials said.

 

See you next time.