Chile’s capital is facing the worst cold wave in decades

Chileans are packing more clothes and clutching cups of hot coffee as the country faces its most intense cold snap in nearly seven decades, pushing winter weather into mid-autumn. “Since 1950, that is to say in the last 74 years, we have not had such an intense cold wave as the current one in May,” University of Santiago climatologist Raul Cordero told Reuters.

“So we are dealing with the longest cold wave ever recorded in the capital, at least since 1950 for the autumn.” For Thursday, the meteorological agency expected a minimum temperature of 1 degree Celsius (34 Fahrenheit) in the central Santiago area.

The change was abrupt: within days of the summer heat ending, mountains near the capital had snow-capped peaks. “May used to be a very autumnal month and now we are going from extreme heat to extreme cold,” says student Francisca Vergara.

The Chilean government has also declared a ‘code blue’ in six regions in central and south-central Chile to help people living on the streets cope with the extreme cold. Cordero also said cold polar masses colliding with tropical warm storms could produce storms such as the recent one in Brazil, where heavy rains and flooding killed nearly 150 people.

Aside from climate change and weather events like El Nino and La Nina, Cordero said bad luck has contributed to the extreme weather events. “These masses could have been found a few hundred kilometers further north or a few hundred kilometers further south and the consequences would have been different,” Cordero said.

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