• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.21-33
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• 2020

Purpose: The objective of this research is to classify snowfall area types with consideration of past regional snowfall characteristics and times for the effective local snow removal response systems of 229 local government districts. Method: This research first collected snowfall data of South Korea meteorological stations, and classified regional types using successive snowfall time. This research finally produced GIS maps using regional type information of snowfalls by applying GIS analysis methods. Result: This research provides five types of snowfall regions including 'frequent heavy snowfall regions', 'frequent light snowfall regions', 'rare heavy snowfall regions', 'average snowfall regions', and 'rare light snowfall regions' based on analysis results. Conclusion: Results of this research can be used as basic information for regional demand estimations of snow removal equipments, materials, vehicles, and personnel for the efficient snow removal response systems.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.33-40
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• 2007

This study is to grasp and analyse the temporal and spatial distribution of record-breaking heavy snowfall rarely occurred in the middle and southwest region of South Korea during March of 2004 and December of 2005 respectively. Snow cover area was extracted using the channels 1, 3 and 4 of NOAA AVHRR images and the snow depth distribution was spatially interpolated using snowfall data of meteorological stations. Using administration boundary and Digital Elevation Model from 1:5,000 NGIS digital map, the snowfall impact was assessed spatially and compared with the reports at that time. The damaged area by heavy snowfall over 15 cm snow depth could be identified successfully within the spatial extent of snowfall area extracted by NOAA AVHRR image.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• v.1
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• pp.110-113
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• 2006

This study is to grasp and analyse the temporal and spatial distribution of record-breaking heavy snowfall rarely occurred in the middle and southwest region of South Korea during March of 2004 and December of 2005 respectively. Snow cover area was extracted using the channels 1, 3 and 4 of NOAA AVHRR images and the snow depth distribution was spatially interpolated using snowfall data of meteorological stations. Using administration boundary and Digital Elevation Model from 1:5,000 NGIS digital map, the snowfall impact was assessed spatially and compared with the reports at that time.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.1271-1281
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• 2009

The heavy snowfall event over the eastern part of Seoul, Korea on Mar. 04, 2008 has been abruptly occurred after the frontal system with the heavy snowfall event had been past over the Korean peninsula on Mar. 03, 2008. Therefore, this heavy snowfall event couldn't be predicted well by any means of theoretical knowledges and models. After the cold front passed by, the cold air mass was flown over the peninsula immediately and became clear expectedly except the eastern part and southwestern part of peninsula with some large amount of snowfall. Even though the wide and intense massive cold anticyclone was expanded and enhanced by the lowest tropospheric baroclinicity over the Yellow Sea, but the intrusion and eastward movement of cold air to Seoul was too slow than normally predicted. Using the data of numerical model, satellite and radar images, three dimensional analysis Products(KLAPS : Korea Local Analysis and Prediction System) of the environmental conditions of this event such as temperature, equivalent potential temperature, wind, vertical circulation, divergence, moisture flux divergence and relative vorticity could be analyzed precisely. Through the analysis of this event, the formation and westward advection of lower cyclonic circulation with continuously horizontal movement of air into the eastern part of Seoul by the analyses of KLAPS fields have been affected by occurring the heavy snowfall event. As the predictability of abrupt snowfall event was very hard and dependent on not only the synoptic atmospheric circulation but also for mesoscale atmospheric circulation, the forecaster can be predicted well this event which may be occurred and developed within the very short time period using sequential satellite images and KLAPS products.

• Atmosphere
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.269-282
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• 2019

While it is important to obtain the accurate information on snowfall data due to the increase in damage caused by the heavy snowfall in the winter season, it is not easy to observe the snowfall quantitatively. Recently, snow measurements using a weighing precipitation gauge have been carried out, but there is a problem that high snowfall intensity results in low accuracy. Also, the observed snowfall data are sensitive depending on wind speed, temperature, and humidity. In this study, a new process of quality control for snow water equivalent (SWE) data of the weighing precipitation gauge were proposed to cover the low accuracy of snow data and maximize the data utilization. Snowfall data (SWE) observed by Pluvio, Parsivel, snow-depth meter using laser or ultrasonic, and rainfall gauge in Cloud Physics Observation Site (CPOS) were compared and analyzed. Applying the QC algorithm including the use of number of hydrometeor particles as reference, the increased SWE per the unit time was determined and the data noise was removed and marked by flag. The SWE data converted by the number concentration of hydrometeor particles are tested as a method to restore the QC-removed data, and show good agreement with those of the weighing precipitation gauge, though requiring more case studies. The three events data for heavy snowfall disaster in Pyeongchang area was analyzed. The SWE data with improved quality was showed a good correlation with the eye-measured data ($R^2$ > 0.73).

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.765-784
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• 2019

The synoptic structural characteristics associated with heavy snowfall (Bukgangneung: 31.3 cm) that occurred in the Yeongdong area on 20 January 2017 was investigated using surface and upper-level weather charts, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis data, radiosonde data, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud product. The cold dome and warm trough of approximately 500 hPa appeared with tropopause folding. As a result, cold and dry air penetrated into the middle and upper levels. At this time, the enhanced cyclonic potential vorticity caused strong baroclinicity, resulting in the sudden development of low pressure at the surface. Under the synoptic structure, localized heavy snowfall occurred in the Yeongdong area within a short time. These results can be confirmed from the vertical analysis of radiosonde data and the characteristics of the MODIS cloud product.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.713-718
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• 2014

This paper proposed a real-time monitoring system that can realize effective operation of snowplows each of the local autonomous entities secures to cope with disasters in Korea like a wintertime heavy snowfall and also can promptly cope with the spot facing a heavy snowfall disaster by doing real-time monitoring on the information of the snow-removal site and the mobility of the vehicles. Also, the study has designed a relay terminal analysis tool so that the proposed system can analyze all kinds of controlling information and diagnose the relay terminal effectively. The proposed system can realize effective and emergent coping with the situations of a heavy snowfall disaster through real-time routing trace as well as effective work progress within a short time by doing real-time monitoring on the information about the status of snow-removal work and vehicle controlling for snow-removal work as well as the location information of snow-removal vehicles in the situations of a heavy snowfall.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1481-1493
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• 2014

In order to understand the relation between the distribution of sea surface temperature and heavy snowfall over western coast of the Korean peninsula, several numerical assessments were carried out. Numerical model used in this study is WRF, and sea surface temperature data were FNL(National Center for Environment Prediction-Final operational global analysis), RTG(Real Time Global analysis), and OSTIA(Operational Sea Surface Temperature and Sea Ice Analysis). There were produced on the basis of remote sensing data, such as a variety of satellite and in situ observation. The analysis focused on the heavy snowfall over Honam districts for 2 days from 29 December 2010. In comparison with RTG and OSTIA SST data, sensible and latent heat fluexes estimated by numerical simulation with FNL data were higher than those with RTG and OSTIA SST data, due to higher sea surface temperature of FNL. General distribution of RTG and OSTIA SST showed similar, however, fine spatial differences appear in near western coast of the peninsula. Estimated snow fall amount with OSTIA SST was occurred far from the western coast because of higher SST over sea far from coast than that near coast. On the other hand, snowfall amount near coast is larger than that over distance sea in simulation with RTG SST. The difference of snowfall amount between numerical assessment with RTG and OSTIA is induced from the fine difference of SST spatial distributions over the Yellow sea. So, the prediction accuracy of snowfall amount is strongly associated with the SST distribution not only over near coast but also over far from the western coast of the Korean peninsula.

• Atmosphere
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.19-33
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• 2016

Water vapor in the atmosphere is an important element that generates various meteorological phenomena and modifies a hydrological cycle. In general, the Yeongdong region has a lot of snow compared to the other regions in winter due to the complex topography and an adjacent East Sea. However, the phase change from water vapor to ice cloud and further snowfall has little been examined in detail. Therefore, in this study, we investigated phase change of liquid water in terms of a quantitative budget as well as time lag of water vapor conversion to snowfall in the ESSAY (Experiment on Snow Storms At Yeongdong) campaign that had been carried out from 2012 to 2015. First, we classified 3 distinctive synoptic patterns such as Low Crossing, Low Passing, and Stagnation. In general, the amount of water vapor of Low Crossing is highest, and Low Passing, Stagnation in order. The snowfall intensity of Stagnation is highest, whereas that of Low Crossing is the lowest, when a sharp increase in water vapor and accordingly a following increase in precipitation are shown with the remarkable time lag. Interestingly, the conversion rate of water vapor to snowfall seems to be higher (about 10%) in case of the Stagnation type in comparison with the other types at Bukgangneung, which appears to be attributable to significant cooling caused by cold surge in the lower atmosphere. Although the snowfall is generally preceded by an increase in water vapor, its amount converted into the snowfall is also controlled by the atmosphere condition such as temperature, super-saturation, etc. These results would be a fundamental resource for an improvement of snowfall forecast in the Yeongdong region and the successful experiment of weather modification in the near future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.97-104
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• 2012

In this paper, the GPS precipitable water vapor was retrieved by estimating of GPS signal delay in the troposphere during the progress of heavy snowfall on the Gangwon Province, 2011. For this period, the time series analysis between GPS precipitable water vapor and fresh snow depth was accomplished. The time series and the comparison with the GPS precipitable water vapor and the fresh snow depth indicates that the temporal change of two variations is closely related to the progress of the heavy snowfall. Also, the periodicity of GPS precipitable water vapor using the wavelet transform method was showed a similar cycle of saturated water vapor pressure as the limitation of this study span. The result shows that the decrement of GPS precipitable water vapor was conflicted with the increment of fresh snow depth at two sites, Gangneung and Uljin. The correlation between the GPS precipitable water vapor and the saturated water vapor pressure for the event was showed a positive correlation, compare with the non-heavy snowfall periods.