Taiwan is set to experience drier weather and temperatures between 16 and 20 degrees Celsius through to spring as the effects of La Niña intensify, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said Friday.
Despite an unusually warm November, average temperatures between December and the end of February are likely to be more in line with recent years, according to Chen Yi-liang (陳怡良), deputy head of the CWB Weather Forecast Center.
The CWB has forecast lows of 17 degrees and highs of 20 degrees for December, with temperatures ranging from 16 to 18 degrees in January and 16 to 19 degrees in February.
However, the bureau added that with frequent cold air heading south, the next few months could also bring cold snaps.
The opposite of El Niño, La Niña is an oceanic and atmospheric phenomenon that refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific.
From September to October, northeast monsoon and the peripheral circulation of storms and typhoons made the northern and eastern parts of Taiwan cooler relative to the rest of the country, according to the CWB.
The weather bureau said the average temperature between Sept. 1 and Nov. 23 was 25.7 degrees Celsius, which fell within the normal range.
The bureau added it had recorded an average temperature of 6.07 degrees Celsius between September and the start of this month and a record-breaking average of 8.03 degrees in November at its weather station on Yushan (Mount Jade), which sits 3,952 meters above sea level.
The second highest average temperature, recorded in 2017, was 7.67 degrees Celsius, the CWB said.
Rainfall during Autumn was mainly impacted by tropical storms Nesat and Nalgae, and northeast monsoons, according to the CWB.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel