Typhoons and Sleeping Pills

It's 4am, and I'm awake as though I never adjusted my internal clock since leaving the US. It's the constant roaring and howling winds, the earth-shaking thunder, and the strobe-light lightning show that is lighting up my ceiling. Only kidding. Typhoon Saola is still miles out to sea right now, but I thought I'd offer something more dramatic and exciting than 'we've been gray and rainy the last few days, with very, very mild winds and a surprising lack of thunder.'

Still, there has been a lot of commotion about what Saola might have in store for us as she? he? it? bears down on Taiwan, and in particular, the northern and eastern counties of Taipei, Yilan, and Hualien. This map showing the wave swell forecast is pretty interesting. As far as I can guess, someone takes wind forecasts from a global weather forecast model and crunches them through some algorithms to predict swell height. It's what surfers use to forecast their play dates with the sea. Yes, that's 30+ ft. swell forecast in the Taiwan area.

Today my labmate showed me some live webcam footage of the east coast shoreline (CWB, you need IE to view cams), and it was being lit up by what looked to be the everything-one-could-ask-for, glassy kind of surf. Waves ahead of a typhoon + weak winds = a recipe for magic if the local bathymetry can handle the wave. I won't get a chance to see it with my own eyes, or see as that evolves into a churning, roaring, boiling ocean, but I'll be watching via webcam as long as the camera withstands the wind.

As of now, a lot is left to chance (forecast limitations), which means a lot for a small and insanely mountainous island (ask wiki about Taiwan topography). It has already slowed it's pace in spite of many forecasts that suggested otherwise. One way or another, it's gon rain, so I think I'll cave and buy myself a $200 NT umbrella. Should be an interesting experience, perhaps even exciting for anyone around here who tends to get excited about mother nature.

 

There's something about a pink typhoon glow