By Ian Werther in News — 14 Mar 2026

South Korea's warm spell brings day-night swings, raising landslide and port disruption risks.

The Korea Meteorological Administration warns that a warm spell this weekend could come with a sharp day-to-night temperature swing, raising risks for thaw-related ground instability. As the weekend approaches, the agency cautions that ice on rivers, lakes and reservoirs may melt and weaken ground, increasing the chances of ground subsidence and landslides in parts of the country.

For Saturday, the forecast calls for a wide temperature range. Morning lows are expected to be between -4 and 4 degrees Celsius, while daytime highs are projected to reach 10 to 15 degrees across much of the country. Nationwide conditions are likely to be mostly cloudy.

City-by-city, morning lows are expected to be: Seoul 3°C, Incheon 3°C, Chuncheon -2°C, Gangneung 2°C, Daejeon 1°C, Daegu 0°C, Jeonju 1°C, Gwangju 1°C, Busan 4°C, and Jeju 6°C. Daytime highs are forecast as: Seoul 12°C, Incheon 10°C, Chuncheon 13°C, Gangneung 12°C, Daejeon 14°C, Daegu 15°C, Jeonju 13°C, Gwangju 15°C, Busan 13°C, and Jeju 13°C.

At the end of a long heat wave, and with the grass and much of the vegetation tinder dry, the ground has been clearly blackened by a seemingly recent barbecue or small fire. Unfortunately, I don't know who was responsible for it.
Greenwich Park is just a short bus ride from where I live in London. It was not just the bleached grass that was shocking - many of the trees were already losing their leaves and younger trees looked seriously stressed. London and much of Europe have seen many weeks of extreme heat and drought.
The mainstream media reprimands individuals for wasting water, justifiably exhorting us to limit our showers, but all the while ignoring the highly profitable water companies which fail to invest in infrastructure, reservoirs or leakage prevention. The media also overlooks the devastating impact of large scale agribusiness, particularly livestock farming, which places an increasingly unsustainable demand on the planet's scarce water resources, as well as further inflating emissions and driving deforestation.
Meanwhile, corporate greed is accelerating the consumption of fossil fuels and water and turbocharging climate change. We need rain. We need more regulation. More action. We need to get to net zero asap and water management should not be in private hands. Water companies are siphoning off enormous profits from a vital public utility and failing to invest anything like what is needed.
The head of Thames Water (the same company which dumped raw sewage into rivers over 5000 times in 2021) is set to pocket £3 million as a 'golden hello' for signing on as CEO ,while in total the UK's water companies have handed an average of around £2 billion every year to their shareholders in dividends since they were privatised. If they were nationalised, those profits could instead have been invested to upgrade the infrastructure and mitigate the impact of climate change and have even provided extra funds to promote sustainable alternative energy sources.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/20/thames-water-...
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/01/england-priva...
As Caroline Lucas writes in the Guardian (12.08.22) - ' (Drought) is a consequence of years of inaction on the climate emergency. This is producing a perfect storm of energy insecurity, food supply chaos and extreme weather that is wreaking havoc on society.'

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/12/drought-uk-... — Representative image for context; not directly related to the specific event in this article. License: CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The agency notes that the diurnal temperature range will remain large in the near term. As daytime temperatures rise, ice in rivers, lakes, reservoirs and streams is at risk of breaking apart, with possible ground subsidence or landslides in susceptible areas.

In the southern inland, frost may occur, and dense fog with visibility under 1 kilometer could develop in places from midnight through 10 a.m. Fog tends to be thicker along roads near rivers, lakes and valleys, so drivers should exercise extra caution.

Envisat captures dust and sand from the Algerian Sahara Desert, located in northern Africa, blowing west across the Atlantic Ocean. Sandstorms are very common over the Sahara, and large concentrations of the dust can be found in the tropical Atlantic and the Caribbean. The dust contains many nutrients, including nitrogen, phosphorus and iron, which act as a fertiliser and stimulate the production of massive plankton blooms. In this image, plankton blooms are visible in the Atlantic as blue and green swirls.
Although some types of plankton are individually microscopic, the chlorophyll they use for photosynthesis collectively tints the colour of the surrounding ocean waters. This allows dedicated 'ocean colour' satellite sensors, such as Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), to detect them from space. MERIS acquired this image on 8 April 2011 at a resolution of 300 m. — Representative image for context; not directly related to the specific event in this article. License: CC BY-SA 3.0 igo. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Maritime conditions will be challenging as well. Winds off the southeast coast near Jeju are forecast at 30 to 60 kilometers per hour, with waves ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 meters. Mariners and fishers should monitor the sea state closely and follow safety advisories. Strong swells are also expected to reach along the East Coast and Jeju’s shores, potentially washing onto beaches, rocky areas, breakwaters and coastal roads, underscoring coastal safety.

Air quality is expected to be in the good to moderate range nationwide.

Why this matters beyond Korea: For U.S. readers, these conditions highlight how weather patterns in a major East Asian manufacturing and shipping hub can ripple outward. Ground instability and flooding risks, even from thawing ice, can disrupt roads, rail routes and supply chains that rely on rapid movement of components and finished goods. Korea’s coastal and maritime activity—an important link in global electronics, automotive and consumer goods logistics—can experience disruptions from strong winds, high waves and fog that affect port operations and shipping schedules. Understanding Korea’s weather alerts helps multinational companies and travelers anticipate potential delays and safety concerns in a region that is central to global trade and technology supply chains.

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