Brazil Faces Split Weather Pattern as Inmet Maintains Storm and Heavy Rain Alerts

Overview

• Inmet kept orange warnings through Friday night for heavy rain in the North and parts of the Northeast and Center-West, and posted a wind alert for Rio Grande do Sul on Friday with gusts up to 60 km/h.
• Following Thursday's storms over Porto Alegre, a cold front tied to an extratropical cyclone continued to trigger showers, lightning and isolated hail across Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná.
• Paraná was under a potential-severe alert covering 234 cities on Thursday, and Inmet listed likely impacts including power cuts, treefall, urban flooding and crop damage.
• The Intertropical Convergence Zone fueled frequent downpours across the far North and north of the Northeast, with targeted alerts for 171 cities in Ceará and 89 in Paraíba calling for 20–60 mm/h rain and winds up to 100 km/h in higher-risk areas.
• The Southeast stayed mostly hot and dry, though forecasts call for rain to return to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro over the weekend, and NOAA says El Niño odds rise from mid-June, a shift that can boost rain in the far South and trim it in parts of the North and Northeast.