South Korea dealt with the wettest winter in about half a century, seeing a historic amount of 236.7 millimeters of rain drenching the nation in recent months, the weather agency said Thursday.
From Dec. 1 through the end of February, up to 236.7 mm of rain was observed here, marking the highest amount of precipitation to be recorded in the cited period since 1973, when the Korea Meteorological Administration started collecting the related data.
The latest precipitation level was 2.7 times higher than the 30-year average of 89 mm. It also beat the previous record high of 195.9 mm observed in 1988 by 40.8 mm.
According to the KMA, Korea also saw 31.1 days of rain during the same period, compared to the 30-year average of 19.4 days. Rainfall occurred nearly twice as often compared to the average number of rain days during winter in the past five years, which was 16.1 days.
The KMA cited a pressure ridge that was formed due to last year’s frequent influx of wet and warm southerly winds as behind the heavy rainfall this winter. From Dec. 10 to 15 last year, Korea saw a lot of rain due to low pressure that developed in southern China coupled with high pressure that developed in the eastern area of the Korean Peninsula. During this time, Gangneung, Gangwon Province, saw 91.2 mm of rain and Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, saw 63.8 mm of rain, breaking the record for highest amount of rainfall in December.
This winter was also the second warmest winter on record since the KMA started compiling related data. The average temperature recorded 2.4 degrees Celsius, 1.9 C higher than the 30-year average of 0.5 C. It was slightly lower than the corresponding temperature in 2019, which came to 2.8 C, marking the warmest winter on record.
