Tropical storm Songda won't approach Taiwan, but Aere is bringing rain

Taipei, Oct. 9 (CNA) A tropical storm, named Songda, has formed in the Pacific, but even though it will not approach Taiwan, another storm Aere is expected to continue bringing heavy rain to much of the island, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) forecast on Sunday.

Songda was situated about 3,500 kilometers east of Eluanbi, Taiwan's southernmost point, Saturday night, and was moving in the west northwesterly direction, according to CWB data.

The bureau predicted that Songda will head north, instead of approaching Taiwan.

Meanwhile, while tropical storm Aere hovered over the seas off the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, its outer fringes will continue to bring rain to Taiwan in the next few days, but its influence will gradually weaken.

Aere was situated about 300 km west of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan Sunday morning. As the northeasterly winds move south, the storm will gradually dissipate, the CWB said.

Due to the influence of Aere, the weather bureau issued torrential and heavy rain advisories at 6:10 a.m. Sunday for northern and eastern Taiwan, with New Taipei, Keelung and Taitung cities and counties, as well as two outlying counties off Taitung -- Ludao and Lanyu, to receive torrential rain during the day.

Extremely torrential rain or torrential rain rain was expected in Keelung, New Taipei, Taitung, while Yilan, Taipie, Pingtung and Penghu will receive extremely heavy rain or heavy rain. Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Hualien and Kaohsiung are likely to receive heavy rain Sunday.

As Aere and the northeasterly winds move further away, the rain will weaken next week, the CWB noted.

As for the temperature on Sunday, the weather bureau forecast that because the northeasterly winds will bring cooler air, the highs in northern and northeastern Taiwan will be at 25 or 26 degrees Celsius while in the rest of Taiwan, they will reach 28 to 30 degrees.

The lows will be at 22 or 23 degree in the north, and 24 or 25 degree in other places, the CWB predicted.

Meanwhile, the Soil and Water Conservation Bureau issued landslide warnings on Sunday for the areas near 93 rivers in Taitung County.

(By Wang Shu-fen, Chen Wei-ting and Elizabeth Hsu)

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