A man bathes his son on Leblon Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, amid the heat wave afflicting the country. ANDRÉ COELHO (EFE)
Hundreds of cities are on high alert this week because of high temperatures due to the first major heatwave of the season, with more than a month left until the start of summer. An unprecedented wave in extent and duration. On the map of the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet), two-thirds of Brazil’s territory is colored orange and red, the colors for “danger” and “great danger”. In this last category, it is assumed that, according to the authority, there is a “high probability of damage and accidents that endanger the physical integrity or even the life of people”. A total of 1,413 municipalities in 13 federal states, i.e. around 5,000 municipalities, are in the risk zone, which is activated when temperatures are five degrees above average on several consecutive days. At the same time, heavy rain is expected in the south.
The oppressive heat came upon us in a slow but steady crescendo a few days ago. In Rio de Janeiro, crowds packed beaches over the weekend to find some relief, but the worst was yet to come. High humidity in the area makes the situation worse. The degrees displayed by the markings of the road thermometer seem even bearable compared to the feeling of someone walking in the scorching sun. On Monday, the mayor’s office recorded a high temperature of 42.5 degrees, but the actual wind chill was 50.5 degrees. In São Paulo it reached 37.4 degrees, the hottest November day in 19 years.
In addition to sweats, hot flashes and bad moods, the heat wave leads to a race against time in the search for air conditioning and an explosion in energy demand precisely because of the search for a cool breeze inside the house. According to the National Electrical System Operator (ONS), the highest energy consumption in Brazil’s history was recorded on Monday afternoon at siesta time, 100,955 megawatts, the first time the 100,000 mark has been exceeded. The sector authorities also raised the forecast for energy consumption in November by 11% compared to last year.
In principle, there is no risk of power outages since the dams are quite full (hydropower is Brazil’s main source of energy), but this hypothesis is not ruled out either. This Tuesday, the power went out several times in the Legislative Assembly of São Paulo, just as deputies asked the electricity company Enel for explanations about the historic blackout that the city experienced the previous week. A storm with wind gusts of more than 100 kilometers per hour toppled hundreds of trees and light poles and left hundreds of thousands of residents without power for days. Eight people died.
People walk on Avenida Paulista this Tuesday in the city of São Paulo (Brazil), where city thermometers show a temperature of 40.0 degrees Celsius. Sebastiao Moreira (EFE)
Heat waves are becoming increasingly common in Brazil, a study recently published by the Ministry of Science and Technology shows. The number of days per year with record temperatures has multiplied rapidly in 20 years. Between 1961 and 1990 it was something quite extraordinary, a maximum of seven days a year. Between 2011 and 2020, there were an average of 56 days of extreme heat.
The dry environment encourages all kinds of environmental tragedies. The Amazon’s historic drought has dried up rivers and left the city of Manaus in smoke due to fires. Something similar is happening in the Pantanal, Brazil’s other great natural treasure, a vast wetland that is the world’s most important refuge for jaguars. So far in November, almost 2,400 fire outbreaks have been detected here, five times more than average.
But it’s not just about heat, but also about the increasing frequency of extreme phenomena associated with it. The hot air blocks the instability and ends up raining a lot on the periphery of this hot mass. There are already warnings that there could be record rainfall in the coming days, especially in southern Brazil. In some cities, between 200 and 400 liters per square meter could fall, likely causing flooding, landslides and possibly deaths. In September, the passage of a hurricane in the state of Rio Grande do Sul left 50 people dead and eight missing.