“Intense.”
“Sudden.”
“Located.”
Three adjectives with which the
National Meteorological Service (SMN)
referred to Thursday's storm to speak in this note.
The first real rain at the beginning of February, a month that strengthened the exhausting heat wave,
caused havoc
in some areas of the City and in others, minutes away,
“it wasn't even felt
. ”
Atmospheric Sciences help explain why precipitation can be so disparate,
if we are
under the same sky
.
“Within this
tropical air mass
(the temperature touched 39°), localized storms do this: over short distances, in one place it rains a lot and in another almost nothing.
This rain mainly covered the east of the Federal Capital and the southern area of Greater Buenos Aires.
The highlight was the intensity in several neighborhoods of the City, including Aeroparque.
I think that was one of the most intense rains that CABA has ever endured
,” SMN meteorologist José Luis Stella
tells
Clarín .
“75 mm in half an hour is something
enormous
,” he reinforces, due to the level of precipitation recorded by the Aeroparque meteorological station.
“
No city in the world can withstand so much in such a short time
.”
"It was to be expected that the areas where it rained like this would flood."
Palermo, Belgrano, Retiro and Constitución were among the most affected, with temporary flooding.
In Villa Ortúzar, 10 kilometers from Aroparque, where there is another meteorological station,
barely 5 mm was recorded
.
“In Ezeiza, nothing,” he distinguishes.
In the city, the average rainfall in February is 130 mm.
Because it happens?
What activated this “baldazo” or, more in line with the carnival, “bombucha” mode, aimed at some areas and not others?
“It depends on where the storm forms
,” Stella summarizes.
An image of the flood in the city of Buenos Aires, this Thursday.
Photo Guillermo Rodríguez Adami
Technically, it was an
isolated convective cell
.
This means that “in such a warm and humid air mass, any disturbance can cause air to rise and, being so unstable, these types of storms develop that may not
have a large horizontal extension
.”
In principle,
for meteorology it is not something atypical
, given that we come from one of the most territorially extensive and prolonged heat waves in time.
Since January 21 we have had this heat.
After noon on Thursday, the feeling (quite accurate) was that of
being in a real tropical rain
: storm, with more than 33°C.
“Let us not forget that
the presence of El Niño was inhibited
(it rained much less than expected), but we are still experiencing climatic conditions typical of that phenomenon.
So the humidity is returning, as the atmospheric blockage of the Atlantic moves, which is providing very humid, very tropical air, which
causes this type of sectorized events
,” describes the expert.
After oppressive temperatures, this uneven panorama in storms is also occurring in other provinces, such as Córdoba and San Luis, as well as in the Cuyo region, in the NOA, in La Pampa and in the Province of Buenos Aires.
The storm hit the City very unevenly.
“I would say that these alerts are not so extreme, they will be repeated as this heat wave slowly subsides,” the meteorologist predicts.
The rain will continue on Friday and Saturday in the central area of the country
.
Then it will move north.
“We have to be attentive in the coming days and weeks.
El Niño becomes important again throughout the remainder of the summer and even into the beginning of fall.
The strange thing was the intense and long-lasting heat wave
at the end of January, which should not have happened if we have a strong establishment of the El Niño phenomenon in summer,” Stella closes.