‘Even Lucifer was using a fan’: Brazil bakes as mercilessly hot spring begins

THE GUARDIAN

Aferocious heatwave was sweeping South America, and samba composer Beto Gago (Stuttering Bob) saw only one thing to do: pop out for an ice-cold beer with his drinking buddy Joel Saideira – Last Order Joel.

“Damn, it was grim around here yesterday,” the 76-year-old musician grimaced as he stood outside his home in Irajá – reputedly Rio’s hottest neighbourhood – with a bohemian’s potbelly spilling out over his lilac shorts.

“It was bloody miserable. Even Lucifer was using a fan! He couldn’t bear the heat either!” chuckled Gago’s son, a 36-year-old sambista called Juninho Thybau.

Irajá – a No 3-shaped chunk of north Rio famed for its samba stars and oppressive heat – is far from the only corner of Brazil that has been baking under unforgiving and unseasonal temperatures. Having just emerged from its warmest winter since 1961, South America’s largest country is experiencing a mercilessly hot start to spring.

With temperatures soaring towards – and in some places over 40C (104F) – newspapers and weather forecasters have drawn comparisons with global hotspots including Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and even Dallol, Ethiopia, which is reputedly the world’s hottest inhabited place.

In the town of São Romão, in Minas Gerais state, temperatures hit 43C on Monday – “only two degrees less than in the Sahara desert”, reported one local newspaper. A week earlier, Irajá’s residents endured 41C temperatures – “higher than Death Valley in California”, according to the television news.

Even São Paulo, supposedly Brazil’s cloudy “Land of Drizzle”, is sweltering, with temperatures hitting 36.5C on Sunday – its sixth hottest day since 1943.

Neighbouring Paraguay – where the rural town of Filadelfia suffered 44.4C heat – and Peru – where the mercury rose to 40.3C in the Amazon outpost of Puerto Esperanza – are also feeling the burn, as is north Argentina.

“I don’t know much about meteorology, but … it’s definitely getting hotter. The whole world is, isn’t it?” Juninho Thybau said on Monday, as Rio’s most stifling post code braced for more extreme weather.

On the evening news, a weather presenter, Priscila Chagas, warned Wednesday could be the hottest day of 2023. “This is the crazy spring,” she declared, forecasting temperatures of 41C.

Climatologist Karina Bruno Lima said the succession of record-breaking temperatures was unusual and “extremely concerning”. The heatwave follows a similar hot spell in August – shortly after the world’s hottest month on record – during the southern hemisphere winter.

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