This Saturday morning I was listening to your Friday evening's "All Things Considered" broadcast from Amherst. The weather report called for lows down to 40 degrees Friday night with possible showers on Saturday and a high of 70. At 6:00 this morning in Kaohsiung it's already 78 degrees but it's not going to get any hotter than about 86. I'm jealous of your temperature range. It won't getting awfully hot but it also doesn't cool down much at night. It's that relentless sameness that still surprises me.
Unfortunately our forecast also calls for no rain in the city, once again. The good news is that there was heavy rain in the mountains yesterday so the planned water restrictions for next week have been suspended for another week. The city government had planned on shutting off tap water to all businesses and households on Tuesday and Wednesday. No one here drinks tap water so it was a matter of figuring out how to take showers and wash your dishes once your apartment building's reserve tank ran out. KAS apparently has a fairly large tank that could last as long as a week if necessary so there are no plans to close the school if the water restrictions ever happen. The government is reevaluating every Friday and deciding at that point if the following Tue/Wed shut-offs will happen. There were rolling shut-offs in Taipei earlier this spring with good results in water conservation so Kaohsiung is giving it a try.
The wet season usually starts in May. The sooner the better!
I wonder how rolling shut offs would work for CA. I also wonder if they really work - I would think people would got pretty angry about it and whether they would got the rich neighborhoods as much as the poor.
ReplyDeleteThere was talk of a run on plastic containers for storing water and people planning on filling their bathtubs to use the water to flush toilets. The result may be that people stockpile more water than they would have used in the first place. I think the government's goal is to affect industry more than households.
ReplyDeleteThere was talk of a run on plastic containers for storing water and people planning on filling their bathtubs to use the water to flush toilets. The result may be that people stockpile more water than they would have used in the first place. I think the government's goal is to affect industry more than households.
ReplyDelete