Sebastian Fest

Updated Monday, March 18, 2024-16:01

Rio de Janeiro says goodbye to the (southern) summer with a succession of heat records unimaginable until recently: the Brazilian city registered

62.3 degrees of thermal sensation

this Sunday.

The mark came hours after it was 60.1 degrees on Saturday.

The emblematic beaches of

Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon

were last weekend and continued to be

a sea of ​​umbrellas

this Monday : locals and tourists turned to the sea looking for relief from the heat, although the reflection of the sun on the sand and water did not reflect it. They moderated precisely.

Thus, thousands and thousands of bathers spent more time than usual in the water.

"I have never felt so hot in my life

," Víctor Matute, a 39-year-old Venezuelan tourist who spends his vacation on Ipanema beach, told EL MUNDO.

"But I can't imagine a better place than Rio for these hot days."

"River is for the strong!"

, the Rio newspaper O Globo

highlighted over the weekend

.

The mark of 62.3 degrees was recorded in Guaratiba, in the western part of the city, and is the highest since 2014.

Thermal sensation is a heat index calculated from temperature and relative humidity data: the higher the temperature and relative humidity, the greater the sensation of heat.

At least five Brazilian states have been recording heat records in recent weeks.

"

At this time

of year,

the sun shines a lot

in the southern hemisphere. But at the same time, between afternoon and night,

rain occurs that helps moderate

the temperature. Solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface, is absorbed and This begins to radiate into the atmosphere, heating the air. When we have clouds and rain, part of this radiation is absorbed by the cloudiness, like a filter. As

we have little cloudiness and little rain

, this is reflected in the temperature, which rises. Thus, all the energy from the sun heats the air," explains Olivio Bahia, from the Institute of Meteorology (Inmet).

After two tourist seasons in which constant rains were the trend in summer, Rio de Janeiro is experiencing an extremely hot summer in 2023/2024.