Proper Rainy Season Expected This Year

The torrential showers associated with the monsoon will return in force this year after two years of relatively dry rainy seasons.

Advertisement

The Korea Meteorological Administration on Thursday said the rainy season will start Sunday in southern parts and extend to the central region early next week.

The KMA said a seasonal wet front currently south of Japan will gradually head north and pass Jeju Island around Sunday. It will remain over the Korean Peninsula from late June to early July and bring torrential showers, subsiding temporarily in mid-July, only to return later in the month.

Around 350 mm of rainfall is expected, around 50 percent more than last year, which saw an unusually small amount of rain for the wet season.

The rainfall expected this rainy season is similar to the average from 1971 to 2010 and more than twice as much as 2014, one of the driest on record that led to a nationwide water shortage.

The return of the normal wet season comes because El Niño with its scorching temperatures recently came to an end after starting in the spring of 2014.

El Nino is an unusual weather pattern resulting from higher-than-usual water temperatures along the South American Pacific coast that leads to average temperatures along the equator rising more than 0.4 degrees Celsius for more than six months.

Seven to 10 typhoons are expected this August in the northwest Pacific, compared to 11 or 12 in previous years, but only around one is forecast to affect Korea.

The KMA said many of the typhoons this year will form east of the Philippines and primarily head toward southeastern China.

But before then, daytime temperatures are expected to soar to 30 degrees Celsius on Friday and Saturday with the mercury in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province surpassing 33 degrees.