Experts See Milder Winter in Korea Despite Sudden Cold Snap

Temperatures in South Korea's mountainous Gangwon region are set to drop to 13 degrees Celsius as a scorching summer recedes, but experts are forecasting the opposite of a harsh winter. They say El Nino makes above-average temperatures likely this winter.

Daegwallyeong recorded an average daily temperature of 20.1 C the previous day and is expected to fall to 13 C on the 12th, the Korea Meteorological Administration said on the 5th. That amounts to a drop of nearly half in a single week, despite a summer that set a record nationwide average temperature of 25.7 C and produced 46 tropical nights in Seoul.

It is too early to predict a bitter winter. The World Meteorological Organization said on the same day that the probability of El Nino conditions persisting is 100% for both September through November and December through February of next year.

The WMO ruled out any chance that sea surface temperatures would return to average levels or shift to La Nina. South Korea tends to see higher-than-average temperatures and heavier precipitation during winter, when El Nino peaks. Still, the country's winter weather is shaped by multiple variables, including sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific and Arctic sea ice, making it difficult to determine temperature and precipitation from El Nino alone.

The strength of this El Nino is already unusual. According to the WMO, sea surface temperatures in the monitoring region — between 5 degrees north and 5 degrees south latitude, and 170 to 120 degrees west longitude — ran 1.5 C above average from May to July, with the gap widening to 2.0 C in July. Between late July and mid-August, readings were 2.2 C to 2.6 C above average.

The Korea Meteorological Administration also said sea surface temperatures in the same region were 2.6 C above average from the 23rd to the 29th of last month. Readings of 2.0 C or more above average are typically classified informally as a "super El Nino."

"El Nino will strengthen further and peak at the end of the year," the WMO said, adding that it "will increase the scope for pronounced swings in temperature and precipitation patterns around the world."

Experts do not rule out the possibility that this El Nino could develop into the strongest on record, surpassing the powerful events of 1997, 2015 and 2023. The Climate Brink, a specialist outlet that aggregates 14 climate prediction models, projected that sea surface temperatures in November would run as much as 3.9 C above average.

The strong El Nino is already rippling through the global economy. In Panama, a prolonged drought caused by El Nino disrupted operations at the Panama Canal, prompting the government to declare a state of national emergency. The WMO has previously put the probability of the existing record high temperature being broken between 2025 and 2030 at 86%, pointing to next year as the most likely timing.