Rio no longer responds.
The Brazilian city reached a peak temperature on Sunday March 17 with 62.3°C, a record level.
"Avoid prolonged exposure to the sun. Hydrate yourself!", Rio de Janeiro's municipal alert system warned on X, announcing this measure at 9:55 a.m. local time in Guaratiba, a western neighborhood.
Already on Saturday, 60.1°C had been recorded – a record since this type of measurement began in 2014.
The western area of Rio is made up of poor, outlying and underserved neighborhoods, where more than 40% of the population of this city of more than six million inhabitants lives.
With a maximum real temperature of 42°C on Sunday, the felt temperature rose to the highest even in the residential area of the Botanical Garden in the south of Rio, privileged with its numerous vegetation and where the felt temperature rose to 57.7° vs.
“We are trying to protect ourselves, to go to a more open place, with the sea, but we have to do something,” Rio resident Raquel Correia, 49, told AFP in a central park.
“I am very afraid that it will get worse, because the population is increasing a lot and deforestation is very significant due to the increase in the number of housing units.”
“Before we didn’t have such heat”
Emblematic of Rio, the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana were packed with people on Sunday.
Many have also found refuge in Tijuca Park, a real green lung in the city.
In Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America with double the population of Rio, more than 12 million, Saturday was the hottest day of the year with the mercury rising to 34.7° vs.
This is the highest temperature for a month of March since the Brazilian National Meteorological Institute (Inmet) began measuring it in 1943.
Sunday brought barely perceptible relief: the thermometer fell back to 34.3ºC, level with the previous record for a month of March recorded in 2012.
Bathers on a beach in Rio during a heat wave, March 17, 2024 in Brazil © Tercio Teixeira, AFP
Here again, the parks of Brazil's most populous metropolis were full.
Many also set out to attack the coast, causing huge traffic jams at the city gates, to the point of forming a line of 20 kilometers of cars, according to local media.
“Before we didn't have such heat, it has changed a lot in recent times,” Vanuza Maria Estevan, a 40-year-old resident, complained to AFP.
Precipitation in the south of the country
In the south of Brazil, on the contrary, it is rain that threatens.
Extreme rainfall is expected to continue this week, authorities warned.
“The week will be at high risk of heavy rain and thunderstorms in south-central Brazil,” weather information agency MetSul warned on Sunday.
“The most concerning system is a very intense cold front that will arrive with torrential rain and possible gales.”
Aerial view of a crowded swimming pool in Sao Paulo, during a heat wave, on March 17, 2024 in Brazil © Miguel Sschincariol, AFP
Some localities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul are recording “exceptionally high” volumes of precipitation.
Uruguaiana, the state's worst-hit city, broadcast images of flooded streets and buses half in water.
Up to 500 mm of water could fall, according to MetSul, while in February the state of Rio Grande do Sul was suffocating with heat due to an "extreme heat dome" from Argentina.
Experts attribute these extreme phenomena and meteorological instability to climate change and the El Nino phenomenon which affects the southern coast of Latin America, in the middle of the summer period, causing forest fires in Chile.
Aerial view showing residents on a beach in Rio during a heat wave on March 17, 2024 © Tercio Teixeira, AFP
The current climate has already warmed by around 1.2°C compared to 1850-1900, causing an increase in episodes of drought, floods and heat waves.
With AFP
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