The biggest climate tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul, with consecutive days of extreme rain that left 85 dead and more than 130 missing, completes a week this Monday (6) — and with no end in sight.
The advance of a cold front, predicted for the middle of this week, is expected to cause new showers of rain and bring down the temperature in the state.
RS has 70% of the population without water supply; thousands of residents are without electricity
♨️ According to meteorologists interviewed by g1this is not an isolated phenomenon: the catastrophe is mainly related to heat wave that hits the Southeast and Midwest regions since the end of April. It causes an atmospheric blockage that leaves the center of the country dry and hot, and prevents cold fronts in the South from advancing.
Humberto Barbosa, meteorologist coordinator of the Satellite Image Processing Laboratory at the Federal University of Alagoas (Lapis – Ufal), summarizes the phenomenon:
“The heat ‘dome’ (or atmospheric blockage) is holding back all clear skies and good weather in the Southeast and Midwest and preventing cold fronts from advancing. At this time, it was supposed to be raining in these two regions, but, due to the dome, the rain ‘slipped’ [para oeste] and was more concentrated in the south of the country”, explains the expert.
Fábio Luengo, meteorologist at Climatempo, explains that there were successive attempts by cold fronts to overcome the blockage:
The scenario was unstable in the region a few days ago, but the sum of these factors caused the rain to intensify. What happened is that we had several cold fronts that were unable to dissipate to other regions because of the atmospheric blockage and, as a result, they began to act over the entire Rio Grande do Sul.
— Fábio Luengo, meteorologist at Climatempo.
In addition to atmospheric blocking, there are also the following factors:
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