AFP, published Thursday, May 19, 2022 at 8:25 p.m
Coats and scarves are dangerous for thousands of homeless but also for crops in Brazil, a tropical country that is experiencing an unusual cold spell in its southern half in the month of May.
At 1.4°C of mercury, Brasilia (middle), the future capital founded in 1960, recorded the coldest temperature in its history on Thursday, while the southern winter officially doesn’t start until the end of June.
On the main page of the Inmet meteorological agency’s website, a map of Brazil shows the entire southern half in orange, with the caption: “Cold wave (danger)”.
In Sao Paulo (southeast), the largest metropolis in Latin America, the thermometer showed 6.6 °C on Wednesday morning, a record for a month in May since 1990, with what felt like -4 °C.
A 66-year-old homeless man died Wednesday after passing out while waiting in line outside a food distribution center. According to Brazilian media, he had spent the night on the street.
Sao Paulo City Hall earlier this week announced the opening of 2,000 additional places in emergency shelters, bringing the total capacity to around 17,000.
But the economic capital of Brazil has nearly 32,000 homeless, double the number in 2015 and 31% more than three years ago, before the coronavirus pandemic.
With a low of around 12°C on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro (southeast), we are still far from seeing a penguin invasion on Copacabana beach, but many cariocas have taken thick sweaters, even the anoraks.
In the southern state of Santa Catarina, which has recorded temperatures below 2°C for several days, the snow has made tourists happy.
According to the daily Folha de S. Paulo, the small town of Urupema, which describes itself as “the coldest in Brazil but full of human warmth”, has a hotel occupancy rate of over 90%.
This town of 2,500 people has welcomed visitors who come from far away, sometimes in the middle of the week, to see the snow for the first time.
According to Estael Sias, a specialist at the Metsul weather agency, this “unusual for this time of year” cold spell was due to Cyclone Yakecan, which struck southern Brazil and Uruguay and “pushed masses of ‘polar air’ further north inland.
“This cyclone is an anomaly that certainly falls within the framework of extreme events related to climate change,” she specifies.
The agency Inmet reported on “possible consequences of the cold spell for Brazilian agriculture” in a country considered one of the breadbaskets of the planet.
Inmet’s press release refers in particular to the risk of frost for vegetable growing, but also for the corn or sugar cane harvest.