Braving the dust to give us an update on the air pollution, we have our weathercaster Lee Jee-hyun standing by outside of Gangnam station in southern Seoul.
Jee-hyun.
Good afternoon, Jiyoon.
Yeah,... things are bad -- very bad, in fact. Ultra fine dust concentration levels are four to eight times higher than normal. Wearing an adequate face mask is a must to protect yourself from the toxic dust, but wearing a mask actually doesn't seem to be good enough. Just being outdoors for a few minutes can cause itchy eyes, sore throat and headaches. If you can, try to refrain from going outside today.
Ultra fine dust alerts are in place for the many western areas and an advisory has been upgraded to a warning here in Seoul. It's seriously bad outside, most areas including Jeju and possibly Busan will also have bad air today.
The ultra fine dust will worsen as the day goes on, tomorrow will be quite dusty as well...now the concern is on the rise as month of March is when Korea gets affected by toxic dust most often.
So think about buying a pack of face masks in advance, and please also note that you need to buy masks that have a rating of KF which stands for Korea Filter, 94 or higher as regular masks don't cut it because they do not filter out enough fine dust.
Temperature-wise, nothing much to complain about... Readings will fluctuate but will hover way about the seasonal norms.
Daily highs will be similar to yesterday, hovering in the mid-teens.. ranging from 13 to 17 degrees Celsius. Seoul is still under a dry weather advisory at a high of 14 degrees Celsius. That's all for me at this hour. Stay safe.
