This year, Holy Week will take place in the last week of March, ending with the Easter holiday on March 31st. Paola Bueno 03/05/2024 16:20 6 min
This year the Holy Week will begin on March 24th, with Easter Sunday closing the week on Sunday, March 31st. This, like Christmas, is a holiday long awaited by Brazilians, due to its religious celebrations and also the opportunity for socializing among their families. For this reason, this holiday is marked by a lot of movement and travel. And as we already know, a good trip depends on the weather conditions and the weather forecast!
A mass of cold air arrives and drops temperatures in southern Brazil. How long will this feeling of relief last?
As we are still at the beginning of March, the horizon of weather forecast models does not yet reach the holiday date and We cannot yet make a detailed and specific forecast for these days. However, longer-range climate models give us a perspective on the average behavior of the atmosphere during Holy Week. Of course, these forecasts may change over the next few days, but in any case they serve as a basis for us to have a trend of what will happen. So, let’s check out these predictions!
Rainfall trend for Holy Week
The extended ECMWF model forecast for the week of March 25th to April 1st indicates that the Holy Week could be marked by above-average rain across the Northeast, southeast of the North and northeast of the Central-West region. But the highlight is the Northeast region, mainly the coast of Bahia, where the model predicts anomalies of 30 to 60 mm this week.
These above-average rainfall forecast over northeastern Brazil will likely still be a consequence of action of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ZCIT) over the region and perhaps combined with the action of a cold front over the Subtropical Atlantic off the coast of Espírito Santo and southern Bahia. The signal of this possible cold front appears through a band of positive rain anomalies that starts from the Northeast coast and extends southwest towards the Subtropical Atlantic.
Rain anomaly forecast for the week of March 25th to April 1st, 2024. Source: ECMWF.
With ZCIT operating further south, the extreme north of Brazil, including the states of Amapá, Roraima and the extreme north of the states of Pará and Amazonas, will record below-average rainfall during Holy Week. Situation that could worsen the water crisis and serious fires in the state of Roraima.
Holy Week will be marked by heavy rains over the Northeast and parts of central Brazil. While the extreme north of the North region and the South region will record more stable weather with less rain than normal.
For most of the Midwest and Southeast regionsas Rainfall will be within average during Easter week, with a tendency for slightly above-average rainfall in the north of these regions, such as in the north of Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo, Goiás and Mato Grosso. In Mato Grosso do Sul the tendency is for rainfall to be within average or slightly below average.
Finally, in South region the tendency is for more stable and less rainy weather during Holy Weekwith a forecast of below-average rainfall in the three states, but mainly over Rio Grande do Sul, where the negative anomalies predicted by the model cover almost the entire state and are more intense over the southwest portion of Rio Grande do Sul.
Temperature trend for Holy Week
Regarding temperatures, the ECMWF model predicts that Holy Week will have above-average temperatures in much of Brazil, following the trend we have observed in recent weeks. With greater emphasis mainly on the North region, where the model predicts the entire region with temperatures 1 to 3°C above average, and also in some parts of the Center-West and west of the Southeast region, mainly in the west of São Paulo .
Temperature anomaly forecast for the week of March 25th to April 1st, 2024. Source: ECMWF.
The forecast indicates that the regions South and Southeast will be the ones that will suffer a little less from excessive heat, mainly in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Rio de Janeiro, in addition to the coastal strips of Paraná and São Paulo, which are expected to have temperatures within the average during Holy Week. Perhaps this decrease in temperatures in these states is associated with the passage of a cold front in the region, but we will only know with greater certainty in updates over the next few weeks.