South America Has Also Been Suffering Through Weather Extremes Lately

Forest fire in Chile in a region of the nation that doesn't get too much
of this type of disaster. Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images

It's still summer in the Southern Hemisphere. I've already told you a lot about the extremely hot and dangerous summer in Australia.

January there, as you recall, was the hottest on record.

Parts of South America, it turns out, have also been having a rough summer.

Earlier this month, the town of Porvenir, Chile, reached 90.5 degrees, reports USA Today and many other media outlets.

This is on the southern tip of South America, and is most southerly 90-degre temperature on record.  Porvenir is a little more than 600 miles from the northern tip of Antarctica, or roughly the distance between Atlanta and Miami.

Record heat elsewhere in Chile and Argentina sparked numerous forest fires. While fires burned in southern Chile, near-record floods hit the Atacama desert in northern Chile, normally the driest spot on Earth.

Santiago, Chile reached 100 degrees for the first time on record. In Argentina, the temperature reached 100 degrees in the city of Perito Morino, an all-time high for that city.

Rio de Janeiro suffered through its hottest January in 97 year. Then, echoing Australia, parts of which had a devastating flood after the torrid and drought-ridden summer, Rio had its own deadly storm on February 6.

The storm produced winds of nearly 70 mph and torrential rains that set off widespread flooding and mudslides that killed six people.

Video showed huge amounts of water crashing through streets in Rio de Janeiro, taking cars, people and lots of other things with it.

This makes me wonder if the Northern Hemisphere will have as sweltering a summer this year as it did in 2018.

Here's footage of the extreme storms in Rio de Janeiro on February 6: