Saola: It begins

Today began with Zack and I coming out of comatose around 1pm. This resulted both from a lack of sufficient sleep all week and from a fun night out in celebration of a good friend's birthday. We both got in around the same time last night from different happenings, running around giddy from a good night's fun, and soaked and ecstatic like dogs just getting out of a bath. Heavy rain has been on and off around here the last few days, getting a bit more intense and a bit more windy with each day, but we are finally seeing a turn for the typhoonier.

The real excitement is apparently going to come a few hours after nightfall, but just as I type this, we're finally beginning to see some quite impressive wind and rain, all from the sturdy comforts of our mango-stocked bedroom (we though an impending typhoon was a sufficient excuse to "work" from our side of campus for the day).

The radar images I've thrown in here show what appears to be some intensification, with heavier rainfall in and surrounding the eye of the typhoon. The national centers have been forecasting some intensification because of more favorable atmospheric conditions, though it might not make a whole lot of difference for us. It's not making a direct landfall (the eye is passing north of Taiwan), but we're going to see heavy rain either way. This, as the locals describe, is the trouble that typhoons cause around this mountainous island.

I'll be doing my best to get some video/pictures of the action from our place. No worries form the west though - the wind isn't going to get that intense, and buildings are plenty sturdy. As for rain, we're well outside of the mountains, so quite out of harm's way. Just a guy enjoying some weather.