In the beginning of August, a hot and cold air mass influenced Southern and Southeastern Brazil, blocking cold fronts displacement to central Brazil. At later August, a cold front, a cyclonic vortex and an intense jet stream caused instability in Central and Southeastern Brazil resulting in heavy rain in some of these regions, softening the dry period.
In spite of the fact that the SOI value was -1.0, there were no patterns that indicated ENSO development this month.
The dry spell periods continued in the region of the main power plants in Brazil. Such situation aggravates the energy distribution in Northeastern and Southeastern Brazil. In Northeastern, São Francisco reservoir volume remains quite low. The discharge was about 42%, slightly lower than the observed value in the previous month.
Hot spots caused by carelessness on agriculture burnings and on the dry vegetation along the roads and next to the forests had their peak in August. It was detected that the total burnings in the fifteen first days of August exceeded 220% comparing to August 2000.
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