Rio de Janeiro saw temperatures surge to nearly oven-like levels on Tuesday due to a heat wave that has swept across a wide portion of the country.
Authorities stated that although thermometers registered 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit), the heat’s severity was not accurately represented.
It felt like 58.5 degrees C, or 137.3 degrees F, in Rio.
That was the “feels like” temperature—a measurement based on temperature, humidity, and wind speed that indicates how hot or cold something feels on the skin.
It marked “the highest thermal sensation since the beginning of records” in 2014, surpassing highs of last February of 58 degrees C, according to the Rio Alerta system.
Fifteen states in the southeast, center-west and part of the north of the country, in addition to the capital, Brasilia, remained under alert by the National Institute of Meteorology (Inmet) due to extreme heat.
The extreme heat also hit Sao Paulo residents, where thermometers rose to an average of 37.3 degrees C on Tuesday afternoon, with a low humidity of 21 percent, according to the municipal Climate Emergency Management Center (CGE).
Unseasonably high temperatures, around 5 degrees C above seasonal normal, have been punishing Brazilians especially since last weekend and will remain until Friday, Inmet estimated in a bulletin issued on Monday.
According to the National Electric System Operator, the intense heat caused electric power usage to surge to all-time highs.
Brazil has seen extraordinary weather in recent months due to the El Nino phenomena, including a catastrophic drought that has dried up Amazonian rivers and torrential rainfall accompanied by storms in the country’s south.
Furthermore, an extraordinary drought in November has exacerbated fires in the Pantanal, the largest wetland in the world, which are primarily human-caused.
