Korea is expected to face a winter marked by the more frequent occurrence of heavier, wetter snow than usual, the Korea Meteorological Administration projected on Friday.
Starting Wednesday, Korea already witnessed a historic two-day spell of record-breaking November snowfall.
According to the KMA, the unprecedented heavy snowfall nationwide was due to the warmer temperatures of the West Sea compared to previous years, due to the unusually warm weather South Korea experienced during summer and autumn.
Usually, a low pressure system forms as cold air from the north passes through the West Sea, and snow clouds are created based on the temperature difference between the cold air and the West Sea. When the temperature difference becomes bigger, larger and thicker clouds result in heavy snowfall like the one observed on Wednesday and Thursday.
As West Sea temperatures are forecast to be at least 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer than usual this year, KMA official Woo Jin-kyu told The Korea Herald on Friday that heavy snowfall could become common whenever it does snow, even if this winter is expected to be warmer than usual. On Nov. 22, the KMA predicted that average temperatures would be 54 to 60 percent warmer than in previous years from December to February 2025.
“The sea surface temperatures on the West Sea have been recorded to be 3 C to 4 C above normal since last summer. Now, it is 1 C to 2 C above normal and doesn’t show signs of cooling down just yet,” Woo added. “These are all prerequisites that tell us that we can expect large amounts of snow that we have never experienced before.”
Over the last two days, the Greater Seoul region saw accumulated snowfall exceeding 40 centimeters, with cities like Yongin in Gyeonggi Province seeing 47.5 cm of snow -- the highest amount recorded nationwide over the past two days. Gwanak-gu, in southern Seoul, saw up to 40.2 cm of accumulated snowfall.
On Wednesday, the capital city also saw 16.5 cm of snow on average, marking it as the third-highest snowfall since 1907.
The recent snowfall led to several instances of property damage, with trees being pulled down down by the weight of the snow, landing on people, buildings and infrastructure, such as water and power equipment. Roofs and greenhouses also collapsed.
According to the KMA, the effects were worse because the snow was wet, with the water-to-snow ratio that fell on Wednesday being below 10. The lower the ratio, the heavier the snow, as it contains more moisture than dry, powdery snow.
The KMA added that wet snow typically forms at temperatures between -5 C and 0 C, whereas dry snow is common in colder conditions, from -20 C to – 10 C.
On Wednesday, temperatures hovered around 0 C, leading to moisture-laden, heavy snow. And with winter this year predicted to be warmer than usual this year, it is likely that Korea will see more wet snow than dry snow.
Another unusual phenomenon during the recent snowfall was how localized it was. On Thursday, while Gwanak-gu recorded 31.4 cm of snow throughout the day, Gangnam-gu, also a district in southern Seoul, just saw just 12.4 cm of snow, showing a significant disparity of 20 cm.
According to the KMA, while this difference was caused due to the difference in altitudes causing temperature shifts, it also warned that such phenomena could occur “more frequently this winter.”
Meanwhile, though heavy snowfall has subsided on Thursday, lighter snowfall may continue in some regions Friday, with central and southern parts of Korea expecting to see up to 7 cm of snow. Temperatures below freezing point were also recorded nationwide on Friday morning, with Seoul’s morning temperatures recorded at -3.4 C while Pyeongchang in Gangwon Province saw morning temperatures dip to -14.8 C.
Temperatures are expected to remain below freezing until Saturday night, before temporarily rising above previous temperatures from Dec. 1 to 2.
