Children cool off in a fountain in Gwanghwamun Square in Jongno District, central Seoul, on June 17.NEWS1
The weather will offer the best of both worlds this weekend, with scorching afternoons balanced by cool, refreshing mornings as an unusually late monsoon remains south of the Korean Peninsula.
Most parts of the country will enjoy clear skies on the weekend under the influence of a high-pressure system moving westward from China's Shandong Peninsula, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) on Friday. Southern regions and Jeju Island will see more clouds on the morning of Saturday, while central regions, North Jeolla and North Gyeongsang will become cloudier on the afternoon of Sunday.
Daytime temperatures will be hotter than normal, but mornings will remain unusually cool, creating a wide gap between daytime highs and overnight lows.
Daytime highs are forecast to reach 23 to 32 degrees Celsius (73 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday and 24 to 33 degrees Celsius on Sunday, about 3 to 5 degrees above the seasonal average.
Morning lows, however, are expected to range from 13 to 20 degrees Celsius on Saturday and 14 to 21 degrees Celsius on Sunday, about 3 to 4 degrees below average.
The unusually cool mornings have already set notable records.
Jeongseon County in Gangwon recorded a morning low of 12.1 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, the second-lowest late-June temperature on record.
Northern Chuncheon, Gangwon, recorded 13.9 degrees Celsius on Wednesday, marking its third-coolest late-June morning. Seoul also saw a relatively cool morning with a temperature of 17.9 degrees Celsius on Friday.
A satellite image captured by weather observation satellite Cheollian 2A on June 26 shows cold, dry air (blue and red) lingering over the Korean Peninsula and areas to its north, preventing warm, humid air (green) from advancing northward.KOREA METEOROLOGICAL ADMINISTRATION
Despite the summer heat during the day, conditions are expected to remain relatively comfortable in the shade because of cold air lingering north of the peninsula. Cold, dry northeasterly and northwesterly winds have been blowing at altitudes of 3 to 5.5 kilometers (1.9 to 3.4 miles) above the peninsula on Friday.
The cold, dry air sitting north of Korea is also blocking moisture from Typhoons Mekkhala and Higos, which are moving north near Okinawa, Japan. The monsoon front, which usually reaches Korea around this time of year, remains stuck south of Jeju Island.
Coastal visitors should still watch for rough waves.
“Swells could push high waves onto beaches or over rocks and breakwaters along the south coast, Jeju Island and the east coast until [Sunday]," ByunKun-young, a senior forecaster at the KMA, said. "Please take extra care to prevent accidents along the coast."
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
