By Yun Suh-young
Smartphone users can now receive Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) weather information in English.
The KMA announced Monday that the English weather information service was made available on the mobile web from Sept. 30.
“Foreign residents and visitors will be able to receive a quick and accurate weather information service whenever and wherever through the English mobile web service,” a KMA spokesman said.
Through the service, the state weather agency will provide current weather, neighborhood forecast, weekly forecast, world weather, satellite images and radar images as well as weather for leisure such as sea and mountain weather services. It also gives emergency forecasts on typhoons, yellow dust, and earthquakes.
The service came amid concerns that non-Korean speaking foreigners could be left at risk in emergency situations due to the lack of information in English.
“There are about 10 million foreign tourists today and about 600,000 foreign residents in Korea. Also the number of smartphone users will reach 20 million by the end of the year. We aim to provide an easy-to-use and efficient weather forecast service for these target users in the globalized and digitalized age,” said the KMA spokesman.
Regardless of the smartphone type, users can check out the English mobile weather information service on the mobile website by typing the URL, m.kma.go.kr/eng, or by scanning the Quick Response Code (QR Code) on the KMA website which will direct users to the English mobile weather service webpage.
The weather agency’s webpage is currently available in English, Chinese, and Japanese and the mobile web service in Chinese and Japanese will be available in the coming months.