• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.229-235
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• 2000

Characteristics of hail occurred during 1989-1998 is studied. Hail is observed mainly at west coast, southwest inland, and Taegwallyong. Average diameter of hailstone is 0.6 cm, and 70% of the occurrence frequency of hail is observed at west coast. During winter and spring, the wet -bulb zero height (WBZ) is low enough to prevent the melting process of hail. But the lack of available low-level moisture (mean mixing ratio in lowest 100 hPa) makes the size of hail small. As a result, smaller size hail is observed frequently over west coast. On the contrary, WBZ is higher during summer, it means that hail is melted before it reaches ground, but the size of hail is bigger. Thus the larger hail is observed mainly Taegwallyong during summer. Hail is observed from 1100 LST to 1500 LST over west coast and around 1800 LST over Taegwallyong. It suggest that thermally driven mesoscale circulations such as land-sea breeze and mountain ridge-valley circulation aid in the formation of hail. Upper and surface air temperature is related to formation of hailstorm. Before formation of hailstorm in November 1998, the upper air temperature decreases. And hails is observed in the spot of strong temperature and dew point temperature gradient coincidently.