S. Korea records 31.4 drought days in 2023: KMA

A boat is put to a standstill due to a drought at Kumgwang Reservoir in Gyeonggi Province on June 9. 2017. (Lee Sang-sub/The Korea Herald)

South Korea experienced an average of 31.4 meteorological drought days in 2023, ranking 27th since records began in 1974, the Korea Meteorological Administration said Friday.

Korea’s southern region recorded an average number of 36.6 meteorological drought days, while the central region recorded 26 days on average.

Meteorological drought is determined based on the degree of dryness or rainfall deficit and the duration of the dry period.

In the southern region, the winter of 2021 had significantly low precipitation levels, resulting in a meteorological drought during the subsequent spring of 2022. This condition persisted, leading to continued low precipitation levels throughout the summer and into the following spring of 2023.

For the central region, low precipitation levels from February to April 2023 led to a meteorological drought.

The meteorological drought in the central and southern regions was resolved in May as heavy rainfall was recorded across Korea, excluding some parts of the central region. In addition, during the monsoon season in the summer from June 26 to July 26, meteorological drought was resolved completely in both regions and zero days of drought were recorded from September to December.

In 2023, the average number of meteorological drought days was low and marked a significant decrease from the 157 days of meteorological drought in 2022, which ranks the second highest since 1974.

However, according to the KMA, there has been a trend over the last 10 years of an increase in the number of years that recorded more than 100 days of meteorological drought.

Over the past decade, the KMA has documented over 100 days of meteorological drought on five occasions: in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2022.

In the period from 1974 to 1983, such an extended meteorological drought occurred once. However, from 1984 to 1993, there were no instances of meteorological drought lasting more than 100 days. Subsequently, in both the periods of 1994 to 2003 and 2004 to 2013, meteorological droughts were observed twice each.