"Severe Heat Warning Yet 29°C?"… Errors Found on Seoul Disaster Safety Electronic Boards

It was found that citizens experienced inconvenience due to incorrect temperatures being displayed on some disaster safety electronic boards across Seoul yesterday (August 4), when the city's first severe heat warning took effect.

According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government and autonomous districts, errors occurred in the current temperature information on disaster safety electronic boards installed at major locations across the city, leading to a series of complaints from citizens who noticed the discrepancies.

According to tips received, the current temperature displayed on five disaster safety electronic boards, including Hongdae Street in Mapo-gu, was 30°C (86°F) at 4:00 p.m. that day, while some electronic boards in Seodaemun-gu displayed 27°C (81°F).

Citizens tilted their heads in confusion as the temperature information was completely disconnected from reality, given that a severe heat warning—issued during situations where daily highs exceed 39°C (102°F)—was in effect across the entire city of Seoul.

It was confirmed that the temperature information errors on the electronic boards began on August 3.

An official from Mapo-gu stated, "The electronic boards within our district automatically pull public data from the Seoul Metropolitan Government, but we have failed to receive proper data since yesterday due to a server issue," adding, "We are trying to find a workaround to connect and fix the error."

The Seoul Metropolitan Government also stated that an error occurred in the process of fetching Korea Meteorological Administration data from the public data portal starting on August 3.

Because of this, real-time temperatures were not updated in a timely manner, and the errors were reportedly corrected urgently.

An official from the Seoul Metropolitan Government said, "We promptly addressed the city's real-time data, but it seems that measures have not yet been taken in a few places."

In fact, a notice posted on the Public Data Portal (www.data.go.kr) operated by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on August 3 stated, "Currently, an issue is occurring where open API calls to the Public Data Portal via http (port 80) are not being processed normally in some user environments. We apologize for the inconvenience."

The notice also stated, "We are taking measures in consultation with the National Information Resources Service," and provided a schedule indicating that resolution was expected "during the afternoon of Tuesday, August 4."

On the Public Data Portal inquiry board, a question was also posted with the title, "Values are omitted or incorrect grid information errors occur when calling the Korea Meteorological Administration short-term forecast API."

Regarding this, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety stated that it understands the weather and temperature data utilized by Seoul is received and used directly from the Korea Meteorological Administration.

(File Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.