Korea’s weather forecasts subpar: report

Report places Korea’s analytic ability 10th out of 11 countries

South Korea’s meteorologists lag far behind other advanced nations in analyzing climate information and predicting weather conditions, a report showed.

According to the report submitted by the National Meteorological Administration to Rep. Kim Tae-whan, a member of a parliamentary committee on science and technology, South Korea ranked fourth in terms of the analytic capacity of its supercomputers, just after the European Union, the U.S., and Japan.

But Seoul’s meteorologists ranked tenth, just ahead of Russia, among 11 countries surveyed in terms of "numerical weather prediction models" designed to produce basic data for accurate weather forecasting, the report showed.

Worse yet, the accuracy of the two-day weather forecast by the Korea Meteorological Administration has worsened since the introduction of supercomputers in 2004, when it stood at an 87.5 percent accuracy. The figure fell to 86.8 percent in 2005 and 86.2 percent last year, respectively.

"The lack of competence of Korean meteorologists is mainly attributable to their short work experience of an average 2.7 years, and just half of the budget compared with other advanced nations," Rep. Kim said.

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