Some 36 houses in South Jeolla were flooded, and 81 hectares (200 acres) of farmland, 131 hectares of salt pan, and four salt storehouses in Shinan County, South Jeolla, were swept by flooding, which caused property damage estimated at 300 million won ($237,000).
The rain has been exceptionally heavy.
Busan has had its highest rainfall since records began in 1908. Over 900 millimeters (35 inches) fell between June 20 and yesterday. Seasonal rain arrived on the Korean Peninsula on June 20.
Suncheon in South Jeolla and Masan in South Gyeongsang came under nearly 1,000 millimeters of rain during the same period.
Suncheon has had its heaviest rainfall since 1973 and Masan since 1986.
Ben at Jeonnam Life looked up the numbers on Thursday.
In the past nine days---in the peak of the local monsoon season---Suncheon has received a whopping 667mm of rain! That's over [three] times as much precipitation as Suncheon received for the whole of July last year when it recorded just 200.2mm.
Thanks to Jeonnam Life also for passing along the link to the Korean Meteorological Association, which lets you look at weather stats for years present and past. Select your city or county, and select 강수량 for precipitation.
Actually I've been meaning to do a post about all this rain, but it's taken a while to piece together. One confusing part is the different numbers they're throwing around. The Joongang Ilbo piece says just under 1,000mm for Suncheon, though when I looked at the KMA stats I found it was under 700mm. Then today I found the map pictured below, which says Suncheon has received 997.6mm from June 20th through July 16th, a number which doesn't match up with the KMA figures.
The only thing I can think of is that they're taking measurements at different places within the city, and that these figures are wildly different, but who knows. Suncheon does, after all, have an area one-and-a-half times that of Seoul. For example the number given in this article on the 16th is 10mm higher than what's on the KMA website, and this one is 120mm higher, and this one is nearly twice as high as what's on the KMA site. When I've looked around the internet and watched TV, there's a lot of mention of Suncheon's Hwangjeon-myeon---about 22 kilometers northwest of downtown---which looks to have gotten a lot. On the 16th it got, according to this site, 73.5mm in one hour. This article shows 201mm for Hwangjeon-myeon by 10:10 on the 16th, but 180.5mm for Suncheon. It also says 53mm for nearby Yeosu, which shows what a difference a few kilometers can make. (The distance from Suncheon Station to Yeosu City Hall is about five kilometers greater than the distance from Suncheon Station to Hwangjeon-myeon).
Interestingly, there's been almost no rain here the past two days, in spite of the forecasts calling for it.
3 comments:
Thanks for posting that. I heard that it was a record (for Masan) but I hadn't seen it written anywhere.
OP:
Busan has had its highest rainfall since records began in 1908.
Ever since I've lived in Korea, I always seem to be hearing how such-and-such is the most/biggest/highest/worst in (take your pick) fifty, seventy-five, one hundred years. Particularly with rain.
Brian, maybe the differing rain measures are from different places, but since that wouldn't necessarily explain such a wide difference, could they also be from different periods? One measuring, for example, all of July, another measuring since the beginning of the summer, and another measuring this year's changma?
Stay dry!
I hate this rain. Partly because it will obscure my view of the partial solar eclipse on the 22nd. Im planning to take some shots of the sun during that eclipse. However with this rain and clouds in Gwangju, its almost impossible. Based on the forecast, it will be thunderstorms and rain showers that day.
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