While summer will officially begin on December 22, the sun is already suffocating Brazil. A new heat record was broken on Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro with a temperature of 58.5°C felt in the Brazilian megacity, the authorities announced.
A large part of the country has been experiencing a wave of extreme heat waves since this weekend. The National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) has placed 15 states in the southeast, center-west and part of the north of the country, as well as the capital, Brasilia, on maximum alert.
Only nine months since the previous record
On Tuesday, the Alerta Rio system noted the “highest thermal sensation since records began” in 2014, at 58.5°C. The previous record of 58°C was set in February. The nominal temperature rose to 39°C on Tuesday.
With 37.3°C, Brasilia for its part experienced the highest temperature for the month of November on the same day since records began in 1962, according to Inmet. Latin America’s largest metropolis, Sao Paulo, for its part, recorded the second hottest day in its history on Monday, with 37.7°C, just below the 37.8°C recorded in October 2014.
Electricity consumption at its highest
The heatwave also generated a historic record in electricity consumption, with a peak of more than 100,000 megawatts recorded this week, according to the national electricity system operator.
The heat wave, with temperatures around 5°C higher than seasonal norms, is expected to continue at least until Friday, estimates Inmet. Due to the El Niño climatic phenomenon, Brazil has been experiencing extreme weather events for several months, with on the one hand a historic drought which affected the rivers of the Amazon, and on the other hand heavy rains accompanied by cyclones in the south. The drought has worsened the scale of fires in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, caused mainly by human action.