Hail accompanies storms that move through southern Brazil

Strong areas of instability with storms advance across southern Brazil this Wednesday. The heavy clouds that move across the three southern states have a high potential for causing localized storms with isolated hail and also strong gusts of wind.

This Wednesday morning, different cities in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul recorded hailstorms. The phenomenon was observed in municipalities such as Alegrete, Pontão and Soledade. In Alegrete, the hailstones reached a large size in some parts of the interior of the municipality.

The heavy clouds that advanced towards the South of Brazil had already caused medium to large hail in the early hours of this Wednesday in the province of Misiones, in the Northeast of Argentina, which borders the three southern states of Brazil.

The instability centers that cause hailstorms on this holiday are isolated, so widespread storms should not be expected in the South Region. They are isolated occurrences, but in some points they can be severe and cause damage.

An exceptionally hot air mass continues to act as a heat bubble over the Central-West and Southeast of Brazil with historic and unprecedented temperature marks in some cities. This bubble of superheated air is directly related to the storms in the south of the country.

This is because the bubble blocks instability and it rains a lot on the periphery of the superheated air mass, that is, over the southern states of Brazil. This situation leads to several consecutive days with recorded precipitation. With abundant humidity and warm air at altitude, thunderclouds form.

The image from the infrared channel of the GOES-16 meteorological satellite late this Wednesday morning showed areas of instability advancing from West to East with very heavy clouds in parts of the three southern states.

Meteorological radar images indicated many small and isolated nuclei with greater reflectivity, therefore with a high potential for hail, especially from the Center to the West, Northwest and North of Rio Grande do Sul.

MetSul, therefore, warns of favorable conditions for new isolated storms in the southern states of Brazil in the coming hours with the possibility of strong wind gusts and, mainly, hail. Hail, in most places where it falls, will be small, but in some places it may be larger in diameter. The risk will be greater in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina.

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