Heavy rain and flooding in Taiwan

Typhoon Morakot did a number on Taiwan over the weekend, with the NASA TRMM satellite estimating 100 cm or more of rain over a 7-day period.  Some locations appear to have received far more than this, but the limited resolution of the TRMM satellite would not have been able to see that.  Of course, the flooding was catastrophic.  Taiwan is especially vulnerable to tropical cyclone landfalls, as the central mountain range provides orographic enhancement of rainfall.  These orographic processes were a central focus of the TiMREX experiment in 2008, which featured the National Center for Atmospheric Research's S-Pol radar.  Some CSU Radarmet students also participated in this project, and our own Angela Rowe has started analysis of some select cases.