Stable weather forecast for most of Taiwan over holiday weekend

Taipei, Sept. 23 (CNA) Taiwan will see mostly stable weather over the upcoming four-day holiday weekend, with favorable conditions for moon-gazing during the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA).

CWA forecaster Lai Hsin-kuo (賴欣國) told CNA that while conditions on Friday would range from cloudy to clear, most cloud cover in the afternoon will gradually clear up by evening.

The moon will be visible for those in the western half of the country on Friday, while those in the east, where it will be a bit cloudier, will have a fair chance of seeing the moon, Lai said.

Saturday and Sunday will see the most stable weather of the four-day holiday weekend, with a chance of afternoon showers limited to mountainous areas.

On Monday, which is celebrated as Teacher's Day in Taiwan, as well as Tuesday, the outer bands of a passing tropical storm or typhoon may bring scattered showers to Yilan and areas above Taoyuan in the north, Lai said.

According to Lai, that weather system, currently a tropical depression, was located 1,890 kilometers east-southeast of Cape Eluanbi, Taiwan's southernmost tip, as of 2 p.m. Wednesday.

The system is expected to strengthen into a tropical storm as early as Thursday, and move west-northwest toward Taiwan through Friday, Lai said.

As it moves into waters southeast of Taiwan on Saturday, it is expected to gradually turn to the north, before moving in a northeasterly direction toward Japan's Ryukyu Islands, Lai said.

However, some forecasting models currently show the storm moving farther to the west, and thus coming closer to Taiwan, Lai added.

Temperatures will remain warm over the holiday weekend, with daytime highs rising above 30 degrees Celsius in most of the country, and to 33 to 34 degrees in some areas, CWA data showed.