Rio de Janeiro reaches a thermal sensation of 60.1 degrees and reaches a historic heat record – World

The Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro recorded this Saturday, March 16, the greatest thermal sensation in its history, reaching an unthinkable 60.1 degrees. The thermal sensation is what people really feel, regardless of the value recorded by official thermometers, as heat is added, among other factors, to the relative humidity of the air.

This suffocating thermal sensation was recorded at the Guaratiba meteorological station, in the west of the city, at 10:20 am. The official maximum temperature monitored this Saturday was 40.3 degrees, recorded by equipment at the Irajá meteorological station, in the north.

The previous highest thermal sensation was 59.7 degrees, also recorded in Guaratiba on November 17 last year, a date that was marked by a human tragedy. A young 23-year-old student, Ana Benevides, who had traveled a long way to Rio de Janeiro to fulfill her dream of attending a performance by singer Taylor Swift, died of dehydration right at the end of the first song performed by the artist, unable to bear the extreme heat that was felt that night at the Nilton Santos Stadium, in the north of the capital of Rio de Janeiro, overcrowded with tens of thousands of people without ventilation and without the organization having guaranteed them access to water.

With 60.1 degrees this Saturday, an immense mass of locals and tourists rushed to the beaches to try to minimize the heat a little, but each of these many thousands of hot-tempered people faced a real hand-to-hand fight to get a space in the sand, no matter how small it was. Anyone who looked at the beaches of Rio de Janeiro this Saturday could hardly see the sand, completely covered by a sea of ​​people jostling to get a few extra centimeters, there was a queue even to enter the real sea, and at the kiosks, bars and In restaurants you had to wait a real eternity to get a bottle of anything.

If this Saturday was already complicated for Rio residents and foreigners, hit by an extreme heat wave that also affects São Paulo, Minas Gerais and even the usually cold states in the south of the country, Sunday could be even worse. The Rio Alert Service forecast is that this Sunday the official temperature could be even higher, exceeding 42 degrees, probably raising the thermal sensation to a new record.