Hualien Radar Weather Station to hold open house

• By Wang Chin-yi and Sam Garcia / Staff reporter, with staff writer

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The Hualien Radar Weather Station is holding an open house on Saturday to mark its 60th anniversary, with interactive exhibits to introduce the technology it uses to track weather and protect Taiwan from natural disasters.

The open house, called “2026 Kiss Science” and organized by the Central Weather Administration (CWA) and the National Science and Technology Council, will run from 9am to 5pm, with guided tours scheduled throughout the day.

People do not need to register in advance and can freely explore exhibitions and participate in activities, the organizers said, inviting the public to seize the rare opportunity to explore the famous weather facility, also known as “the eye of the east.”

The 4th-generation dual-polarization Doppler weather radar at the Hualien Weather Radar Station is pictured in an undated photograph.

Photo: Wang Ching-yi, Taipei Times

The station is along Hualien City’s coastline and features a 30m radar tower and a white dome. It has become one of the city’s landmarks.

Hualien is on the front lines of typhoons making landfall in Taiwan and is prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods, station director Yu Jui-ching (余瑞清) said.

The station’s fourth-generation dual-polarization Doppler weather radar, the METEOR 1700SDP, can transmit horizontal and vertical electromagnetic waves, Yu said.

It can conduct precise, high-resolution observations when a typhoon comes within 460km of Taiwan’s east coast, tracking the movement of precipitation to provide disaster response agencies with timely, accurate rainfall data for flood warnings, they said.

Since the station opened in 1966, it has been one of the CWA’s most restricted facilities, the agency’s event Web site said.

More than 40 specialists from the agency’s headquarters have designed the guided tours and interactive activities for the open house, the CWA said.

Visitors can take part in science experiments, including demonstrations of radar remote sensing and atmospheric pressure, and get a close-up look at a mobile weather radar that is expected to begin monitoring the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) next year to fill gaps in rainfall observation data in eastern Taiwan, it said.

People can also play a weather-themed board game that introduces meteorological technology and earthquake monitoring through hands-on activities, it added.

The station is a key part of Taiwan’s nationwide weather radar network, and would continue monitoring weather and threats in eastern Taiwan to protect the public and their property, Yu said.

Opened in 1966 after Typhoon Gloria exposed gaps in radar coverage off eastern Taiwan, the radar station is the first of its kind in Taiwan.

Its construction received substantial funding from the UN Special Fund and a plaque bearing the words “United Nations” remains at the station, preserving a rare piece of Taiwan’s diplomatic and meteorological history.

The station also preserves a collection of vintage observation equipment and historical records from times when early meteorologists relied on their expertise and determination to protect Taiwan in the absence of automated equipment, computers and the Internet.

The open house would display several historical records for the first time, including the earliest hand-drawn radar echo map, dated Aug. 19, 1966, the first hand-drawn record of a typhoon observation, documenting Typhoon Cora on Sept. 4 that year; and the oldest black-and-white radar photograph, taken during Typhoon Clara on July 10, 1967.