My Fulbright Year in Taiwan

We have been experiencing some strange weather in Taiwan lately. The first episode was last Friday afternoon. It was a beautiful spring day, temperatures in the mid 70s. I had the door to my office open to the outside, as usual. Suddenly, the floor in my office became slippery and wet. The air was heavy with moisture. It was like standing in the middle of a cloud or heavy fog, and yet there was no cloudiness in the air. I closed the door and turned the A/C unit on to dehumidifier mode, and the problem went away. When I went home, Stacy was complaining about the same phenomenon. It was more serious in our apartment, because the floors are ceramic tile, which are colder than the air. The cool floors were condensing all the moisture in the air, and water was almost pooling on the floor! We turned on the dehumidifier, and the apartment dried up right away.

An hour later, about 6:00, the humidity dropped to normal levels.

I have never experienced a sudden increase in relative humidity like that before. It was like someone turned on a huge humidifier over the whole city.

This week, the weather has been very warm: highs in the 80s, lows in the 60s. But… the weather person on the TV news told us not to put our winter clothes away. The long-range forecast for next week calls for highs and lows in the 50s. These sudden changes in the weather are very strange.