Climatology
This page presents Korea, Dem. People's Rep.'s climate context for the current climatology, 1991-2020, derived from observed, historical data. Information should be used to build a strong understanding of current climate conditions in order to appreciate future climate scenarios and projected change. You can visualize data for the current climatology through spatial variation, the seasonal cycle, or as a time series. Analysis is available for both annual and seasonal data. Data presentation defaults to national-scale aggregation, however sub-national data aggregations can be accessed by clicking within a country, on a sub-national unit. Other historical climatologies can be selected from the Time Period dropdown list.
Observed, historical data is produced by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of University of East Anglia. Data is presented at a 0.5º x 0.5º (50km x 50km) resolution.
DPR Korea has four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. The climatic feature in spring is that wind is very strong in daytime with many clear days. In spring, spring drought appears because of small precipitation and much evaporation resulted from strong wind and rapid increase in temperature. The feature of climate in summer is sultriness caused by the highest temperature and much humidity because hot and humid air streams in from the south. In DPR Korea, summer is the rainy season with much rain, and in summer, various disastrous climatic events such as heavy rain and typhoon appear. The other feature of climate in summer is many cloudy days, small change in temperature during a day and high in relative moisture. The main feature of climate in autumn is the lasting of relatively dry period with rapid falling in temperature. The climate of DPR Korea is temperate monsoon with strong continentality. The annual mean temperature of DPR Korea is 8.2°C (average for 1971 to 2000). The annual mean temperature in Kaema plateau and aektu plateau in the northern inland region where annual mean temperature is lowest is below 2°C. The general feature of distribution of annual mean temperature in DPR Korea firstly is that there exist some differences between the East Sea coast and the West Sea coast. Temperature in the East Sea coastal zone is higher by about 1°C than that in the West Sea coastal zone on same latitude. The second is that there exist significant differences in temperature between the coastal region and inland region.
DPR Korea is a country with much precipitation. The annual precipitation of the country is 927 mm (average for 1971 to 2000), which is greater than 840 mm, the annual average precipitation of the terrestrial part of the world. Annual precipitation in the country is very different by region. The regions rich in precipitation are the middle inland region in South Phyongan Province where are the basins of upper and middle streams of Taedong River and Chongchon River, inclined region of the middle course of Rimjin River, inclined region in the middle of Kangwon Province and Kosong in Kangwon Province, where annual precipitation is 1,200 to 1,400 mm.