Monsoon Rains Causing Flash Flooding Everywhere, an Advance Warning for Typhoon Season Havoc

 Monsoon Rains Causing Flash Flooding Everywhere, an Advance Warning for Typhoon Season Havoc

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

May 22, 2019

 Translation of an Excerpt

Last week, we had uninterrupted torrential rains causing flashing flooding in northern Taiwan and the mountainous regions in central Taiwan, with horrifying inundations. This wave of monsoon front started with the atmospheric environment as summer began, being not too different from previous years. However, because climate change has caused an expanded scope in extreme climate change, it has increased the difficulty in making weather forecasts. In particular, the challenge will be even more formidable in the typhoon season which follows, shouldn’t the government, from the central to the local, get ready on high alert?

For this wave of monsoon flash flooding, the Weather Bureau declared that "this is a medium to small-scale convective weather system, which can often only be predicted just a few hours before it occurs." To say so cannot be accused of shirking responsibility, but the Weather Bureau apparently lacks a little ambition in pursuing timeliness and precision in accurate forecasts. Indeed, it is difficult to grasp the medium to small-scale weather changes, but if we can make good use of scientific and technological tools, we may still effectively overcome the difficulties in forecasting. For instance, private sector meteorological operators have developed “timely monitoring of lightning strikes”, which is helpful for grasping instantaneous weather changes; if effectively employed, it could, in a short lead time, let the public understand the relationship between lightning strikes and thunderstorms, so as to improve prevention and protection.

With the timely gathering of medium to small-scale information in the shortest time, how to send it to those who need it is another bottleneck. After the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in 2011, Japan developed technology to transmit the information through smartphones, which merits our attention and study. The government should develop this kind of technology to allow timely information to develop its maximum usefulness.

The monsoon flash flooding this time could be called an advance drill for the typhoon season that follows. The government has utilized, passively, relief subsidies to deal with natural disaster; instead, it would be better to smartly adopt preventive measures ahead of time.

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