The south of Brazil recorded temperature records this week with the arrival of a wave of heat in the region, and the weekend should still maintain the trend of excessive heat, says Daniela Freitas, meteorologist at weather.
In an interview with CNN Brasil, she said it is possible that the region, including the city of Porto Alegre, set new heat records. The temperature in the capital Rio Grande do Sul reached 37.5º C on Friday (14). However, the scenario should ease next week, with the forecast of the return of rains in the region.
“There is a return of rain, but irregular and poorly distributed, this mass of dry and hot air has already broken, and conditions begin to change over the weekend, with a little rain this Saturday and Sunday, and intensifying in the Monday,” he says.
According to Freitas, the dry weather and bad air quality should improve momentarily, but it will not be reversed yet. About 262 cities in the region are declaring a state of emergency due to the drought, which has hit the South for a few months.
The warm air mass that reached the South and areas of Argentina e do Paraguay is part of a high atmospheric pressure system. “It works as if it were a cover, which prevents cold fronts and other frontal systems from advancing through these areas and causing rain and refreshing temperatures”, says Freitas.
The meteorologist explains that the beginning of the year in the Southeast, with a lot of rain, cloudiness and milder temperatures, as well as the heat in the South, is linked to the climatic phenomenon known as The girl.
“In general, it is the anomalous cooling of the waters of the Central Pacific, and it works as a regulator or deregulator of the distribution of rainfall and temperature in a large part of the globe. In Brazil, it makes it rain less in the south and more in the mid-northern areas of Brazil, and that’s what we’ve been following,” he says.
For the next half of January, Freitas says that the trend is for a reversal of this situation, with a reduction in rainfall in states such as Bahia, Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, Goiás and Tocantins, and a return of rains in the south.
“There is also a lot of rain forecast for areas in the Northeast of the country. We have already seen rivers rising there because of the heavy rain that has been occurring, and by the end of this week we should still have a lot of rain.”
*(Under supervision of Layane Serrano)
Reference: CNN Brasil
