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Exceptional Winter Climate

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

   Pyongyang, March 3 (KCNA) -- An abnormal climatic phenomenon never seen previously was witnessed in the DPRK last winter.
    Kim Mun Uk, a room chief in the Hydro-Meteorological Service, said:
    A temperature below fifteen degrees Celsius below zero was quite rare in the winter season and it passed without midwinter cold.
    The cycle of three cold days and four warm days which had occurred with the periodic alternation of high and low atmospheric pressures was hardly witnessed.
    And there was a little snow with the dry weather prolonged.
    According to data available, snow scarcely fell in Pyongyang and other areas of the western coast and some areas of the eastern coast in the period from mid-December last year to February 21 this year and the precipitation in January was 0 mm in Pyongyang, Phyongsong and Sariwon, the lowest ever since the beginning of meteorological observation.
    The sustained period without rain or snow was 67 days in Pyongyang and 59 days in Sariwon, which was a phenomenon rare to be seen.
    In the previous period, Korea had been influenced by the cold northwest seasonal wind with the development of the Siberian anticyclone in winter and by a migratory anticyclone and a traveling cyclone when it abated.
    But, last winter, a cold and dry weather continued with the sustained strengthening of the continental anticyclone which occurred in Huabei region of China.
    This abnormal climatic phenomenon has seriously affected the growth of autumn wheat and barley.