Typhoon Soudelor is heading toward us

As Typhoon Soudelor continues to bear down on Taiwan, almost all cities and counties, except for the outlying Jinmen and Matsu, have canceled school and class tonight.

The Central Weather Bureau is warning of very strong winds and super torrential rain in eastern and northeastern parts of the island later today as the Typhoon approaches Taiwan.

The Typhoon is currently centered 370 kilometers southeast of  Hualian and moving steadily in a north north-westerly direction at a speed of 21 kilometers per hour.

It’s expected to make landfall  near Hua-lian at around 5 A.M. Saturday and sweep across central Taiwan toward Chinese province of Fujian all Saturday.

It’s a powerful storm, packing winds of between 173 and 209 kilometers per hour, strong enough to uproot big trees and do major damage to buildings according to the CWB.

The accumulated rainfall in some mountainous areas of New Taipei and Taoyuan has already reached beyond 140 millimeters as off 3 PM today and the CWB is warning that rainfall may amount to 1-thousand millimeters in the eastern mountainous areas, and 900 millimeters down south.

Even northern Taiwan is expected to receive 800 millimeters of rain from the typhoon up on the mountains.#