Kim Ki-hyun, "Meteorological Administration headquarters downgrades and lifts emergency duty during heavy rain in Geoje and Tongyeong."

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Yullip Lee = With record-breaking heavy rain falling this summer, mainly in Geoje-si and Tongyeong-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, the Korea Meteorological Administration headquarters, which was supposed to act as a control tower, lowered and then lifted the emergency duty level at the time, People Power Party lawmaker Kim Ki-hyun, a member of the National Assembly's Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee, announced on the 8th.

Rep. Kim made this claim after analyzing data submitted by the Korea Meteorological Administration that day.

According to Rep. Kim, the Korea Meteorological Administration downgraded the 'heavy rain emergency level 1' issued at 5:40 a.m. on August 16 to 'heavy rain emergency alert duty' at 4 p.m. Then, the next day, the 17th, emergency work was completely lifted at 9 a.m.

At the time the headquarters' emergency work was lifted, the cumulative rainfall in Geoje and Tongyeong reached 810.2 mm and 678.9 mm, respectively. Afterwards, more than 110 mm of rain fell in Geoje and Tongyeong.

On the other hand, at the time, the Busan Meteorological Administration issued level 1 at 4:30 a.m. on the 16th and then raised it to level 2 at 12:50 p.m. The Busan Office lowered the emergency work to level 1 only at 10 a.m. on the 17th, one hour after 9 a.m. when the main office lifted the emergency work. The emergency shift was lifted at 5:30 pm on the same day.

Representative Kim also pointed out that the mismatch in weather response between the headquarters and local offices was also revealed during the heavy rain in Gapyeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, in July of last year.

On July 19th last year, just before the heavy rain, the headquarters downgraded the emergency duty level from emergency duty level 2 to alert duty at 9 p.m. On the other hand, as heavy rain of 233.6 mm fell between 1 and 5 am on the 20th, the Seoul Metropolitan Meteorological Administration raised the emergency duty level from 0 am on the 20th to level 2.

In both cases, Rep. Kim said that the Korea Meteorological Administration's numerical forecast model failed to predict precipitation.

The Korean Numerical Forecast Model (KIM) predicted a day ago that 271.7 mm of rain would fall in Geoje over the two days of August 16th and 17th. However, in reality, heavy rain of 927.6 mm was recorded, which was about 3.4 times more than the predicted amount.

Even during the heavy rain in Gapyeong in July last year, the precipitation predicted by the Korea Meteorological Administration's prediction model (KMA) was 8.4 mm, but the actual daily precipitation in Gapyeong was 233.6 mm, about 27.8 times more.

Rep. Kim criticized, “In a situation where record-breaking heavy rain is pouring down, encouraging confusion with a false forecast and even canceling emergency work early is a clear dereliction of duty and a betrayal of responsibility as a disaster prevention agency.”