They Call it Stormy Monday

I have heard before that Minnesota (or Wisconsin, or Cleveland, or any number of states or cities) has only three seasons: almost winter, winter, and construction.  Granted, I have only spent three and a half months in Taiwan thus far, not nearly long enough to actually make educated observations, but I have up to this point witnessed only two seasons: so-absurdly-hot-I-don’t-know-how-people-survive and still-extremely-hot-though-potentially-livable-but-most-likely-livable-in-an-alternate-universe.  Okay, I’ll admit there is a possibility I’m exaggerating.  Just a wee bit.

That’s not exactly what I wanted to talk about, though.  At this particular point in time, I am more interested in the specific types of weather we experience here on the subtropical island of Taiwan.  As far as I can tell, there are three types of weather, which I expound upon below.  They are as follows: Hot and sunny.  Cool and cloudy.  TYPHOON.

Hot and Sunny

This is by far the most frequent weather in this city.  As I said before, I’ve been here about three and a half months.  I’m going to be liberal and estimate that as three 30-day-long months plus 15 days in this half-month, leading me to conclude that I have spent approximately 105 days in Taiwan.  Of those 105 days, I would estimate that 91 of them have been hot and sunny, leading me to conclude that about 87% of the days are hot and sunny.  And keep in mind that when I say hot, I mean hot.  This is not normal Ohio-summer hot.  This is Taiwan hot, which means 110 degrees and so humid the air feels like a brick wall.  Okay, so maybe that was more August, September, and the first half of October.  It’s true that we’ve finally gotten to the point where I can go outside without immediately breaking into a sweat.  Progress, at the very least.  Also, when I say sunny, I don’t mean a blue sky with happy little cumulus clouds flitting to and fro.  No, when I say sunny, I mean that there are no clouds in the sky.  None whatsoever.  The sky is perfectly, flawlessly blue, leaving no respite from the sun except in the shadows of large buildings (of which, admittedly, there are several).

Cool and Cloudy

Again, keeping in mind that these are rough estimates, I would say that 7 of the 105 days in Taiwan have been cool and cloudy, leaving us with an approximation of 6.5% of the time.  In a bitter twist of irony, despite the fact that my favorite days in Ohio are the hot and sunny ones, the cool and cloudy days in Taiwan are the ones that I live for.  These are the days that I crave because I can put on long pants and a light, long-sleeved shirt and still be comfortable.  Let there be no mistake: it’s almost Thanksgiving and I mostly wander around in t-shirts and shorts.  These are the days when I can sit outside in the middle of the afternoon comfortably.  No sunscreen.  No sweating profusely.  Bliss!  Actually feeling cool has been known to bring tears of joy to my eyes.  I kid you not.  And this coming from a person who is always freezing in America.

TYPHOON

I daresay this requires little explanation.  This has been approximately 7 days out of the 105, leaving me to further conclude that 6.5% of the weather is typhoon weather.  In fact, the only time it rains in Kaohsiung is if it’s typhooning.  If it’s raining and not typhooning, it’s a miracle.