Korea will feel Hinnamnor regardless of its path

Social Affairs

Published: 01 Sep. 2022, 17:01 Updated: 02 Sep. 2022, 15:09

Korea will feel Hinnamnor regardless of its path

A weather forecast analyst monitors Typhoon Hinnamnor on Thursday at a Korea Meteorological Administration office in Suwon, Gyeonggi. [YONHAP]

Typhoon Hinnamnor will likely be felt in Korea from Saturday through Wednesday, bringing strong winds and rain to southern coastal areas and Jeju Island.

Whether it will affect the Seoul metropolitan area is not yet clear.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said Thursday that it wasn’t sure where exactly the typhoon will head after Monday, when it inches up the eastern side of Jeju Island.

Once the typhoon nears Jeju, the island could see more than 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain, the KMA said.

The country’s southern coastal and central mountainous areas could see more than 500 millimeters of rain, with winds in the coastal areas topping 50 meters per second (112 miles per hour).

Weather officials warned of landslides, tidal waves, flooding and property damage.

Hinnamnor is so strong that it will have a “large effect” on the country even if it just passes by, the KMA warned.

As of Thursday at 9 a.m., Hinnamnor was 510 kilometers southeast of Taipei, moving southward at a speed of 18 kilometers per hour. The typhoon had central pressure of 915 hectopascals (hPa) and gusts of up to 54 meters per second in the center. Strong winds of 15 meters per second and above were blowing within a 300-kilometer radius from the center.

The KMA predicts the typhoon will linger in the eastern waters of Taiwan until Friday and start heading north that night.

On Thursday morning, the KMA categorized Hinnamnor as a “super strong” typhoon – the strongest of the agency’s four categories, strong enough to damage buildings.

A super strong typhoon has maximum wind speeds of 54 meters per second or above in its center.

By the time the typhoon nears Jeju Island in the coming days, the KMA said Hinnamnor could weaken into a “very strong” typhoon, the second-highest category, with the central pressure being 945 hPA and gusts blowing up to 45 meters per second in the center. Under those circumstances, the typhoon would be strong enough to send people and large stones flying, the KMA mentioned.

Hinnamnor comes less than a month after Korea was pounded by heavy rains from a rain front for almost a week, which caused massive flooding and at least 14 deaths.

In mid-August, over 8,900 buildings – almost all in Seoul – were reported damaged. Flooding was reported in some 1,754 hectares (4,334 acres) of agricultural land, mostly in the central South Chungcheong region. About 7,600 people were forced to evacuate.

BY LEE SUNG-EUN,KANG CHAN-SU [lee.sungeun@joongang.co.kr]