Snow causes commuting chaos in Seoul as cold snap looms

Heavy snow hit Korea causing commuting chaos in Seoul on Thursday morning. Flight delays continued in parts of the country. After the heavy snowfall Thursday, another cold wave is forecast from Friday through the weekend.

Snow falls on Hwaseong Haenggung Palace in Suwon, Gyeonggi, on Thursday. Heavy snow warnings were issued in parts of Seoul and Gyeonggi Thursday morning. [YONHAP]

Heavy snow hit Korea causing commuting chaos in Seoul on Thursday morning.

Flight delays continued in parts of the country. After the heavy snowfall Thursday, another cold wave is forecast from Friday through the weekend.

“I arrived to work late as so many people came to take the subway this morning, and subways stopped at each station longer than usual,” a 32-year-old office worker who commuted to Yeouido in western Seoul told the JoongAng Ilbo.

“Commuting was much harder today as outside was cold from subzero temperatures, and I sweated so much in the subway as there were so many people.”

The Seoul city government ran more buses and increased subway frequencies between 7 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.

Some had to leave their homes earlier than usual due to the harsh weather conditions.

“I came out from home 30 minutes earlier than usual considering the subway schedule may get delayed,” said Lee Min-hyeok, who took the subway at Bupyeong Station in Incheon.

People are on their way to work on Thursday morning in Jongno District, central Seoul, as snow falls heavily in the area. [NEWS1]

Others who drove to the office were stuck in traffic.

“It normally takes around an hour to get to the office, but I was stuck on the road even before getting halfway to work,” said a 49-year-old office worker who commutes from Hwaseong to Siheung in Gyeonggi.

The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) strongly advised people to take extreme care on frozen and slippery roads.

Snow fell in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi metropolitan areas and parts of Chungcheong and Gangwon Thursday after warnings were issued, with over 5 centimeters (2 inches) of snow forecast in parts of North Chungcheong that day.

Around 5 to 20 centimeters of snow is expected on the Ulleung Island and Dokdo islets in the East Sea, according to the KMA.

A cold wave warning also went into effect in areas of Gyeonggi and Gangwon Thursday afternoon.

Morning lows on Thursday ranged between minus 15.9 degrees Celsius (3.4 degrees Fahrenheit) to minus 4.4 degrees Celsius, similar to the normal temperatures in previous years.

Temperatures will drop on Friday morning and will become even colder on Saturday as lows will dip into the range of minus 19 degrees Celsius to minus 4 degrees Celsius across the country.

Snow falling in the central regions of the country was expected to stop in the late afternoon Thursday, while southern regions of the country will get snow from Thursday night through Friday.

Jeju Island will get more snow until Friday after its airport fully resumed operations Wednesday.

Around 108,000 people traveled through the airport on Jeju Island on Wednesday, with 454 domestic flights and six international flights scheduled at the airport on Thursday.

As snowfall continued across the country, some flights were delayed and canceled. A total of five outbound flights from Jeju, Gunsan in North Jeolla and Wonju in Gangwon, were canceled as of Thursday 12 p.m.

Heavy snow warnings were lifted in parts of Gangwon, including Wonju, and parts of Gyeonggi and Chungcheong as of Thursday 4 p.m.

Seoul's temperatures will drop to as low as minus 13.7 degrees Celsius on Friday, and in Gangwon to as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius.

BY CHO JUNG-WOO, SON SUNG-BAE, LEE CHAN-KYU [cho.jungwoo1@joongang.co.kr]