As you know I am not very in the know when it comes to weather savvyness(or is it ie?). The main mix up I have is between monsoons, typhoons, and just plain rain. But I finally decided that this was the week to change all of that. As a result I have spent about 5 minutes studying up on my weather and found out some fascinating things.
Did you know that the rains that we experienced lately are classified as monsoon rains? I didn't, that is until this week but it is in fact, fact. I heard it with my own ears this past week and wikipedia confirms it. Monsoons, as wikipedia so simply puts it, are seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea. Like I said, simple. What's more is that the rumor going around is that the monsoon season is over for the year, so this information will no longer help anyone in Korea this year. I hope you have a good memory...
On to typhoons which is much more relevant as the rumors are spreading the fact that the typhoon season will be upon us shortly. A typhoons is a mature tropical cyclone that develops in the Northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. I may be wrong but it sounds similar to a small hurricane, just that it forms in a different part of the world. August is prime time for these although they usually form so far south of Korea that by the time they hit there is not very much damage, just a few days of wind and rain.
Again I spent a whole 5 minutes studying this(or I might have over heard it, I can't remember), so if I am wrong feel free to let me know.
MORE!
Now for the more I promised you in the title. Surfing in Korea! A typhoon passed by Japan earlier this week and made some fine waves at one of the beaches on the island. A friend went to surf them but the "lifeguards"(two people in plain clothes with whistles) didn't think it was safe so they were not happy.
The waves were really nice and it would have been great even just to body surf but right after I pulled up, seeing I was white one of the lifeguards came up to me, made, "X" with his hands letting me know that there would be no going in the water today.
From what I have heard since from Koreans is that for the most part Koreans don't know how to swim. Unlike North America, they don't have swimming lessons for kids, at the beach the kids don't even go deep enough to get their chins wet. Thus their reaction when people display interest in swimming in slightly excited waters.
Just as a point of trivia:
ReplyDeleteHurricanes, typhoons and cyclones are all the same thing; they just have different names based on where they form. Generally, Hurricanes are in the West Atlantic and East-Central Pacific, Typhoons are in the Western Pacific, and Cyclones are in the S. Hemisphere and Indian Oceans. :)