SOS Chuva: Case study: March 5th to 8th, 2017 (1st part)

Several storms were registered from the night of the 5th and until the 8th, due to the atmospheric unstable conditions resulting from the diurnal heating and cold front that advanced toward Sao Paulo state and later moved towards the ocean.

In São Paulo city and metropolitan region, heavy rains these four days caused floods, falling of trees and the death of two persons (news here, here, here, here, here, here and here). During the afternoon and night of the 6th, storms caused heavy rain and lightning, causing floods in several cities. In São José dos Campos, the accumulated rain was 133 mm in two hours, 90% of the monthly mean, and floods affected more than 400 houses and 70 families were relocated with family or in temporary accommodations; the number of lightning was a record (news here, here, here, here and here). On the 7th, rains in São José dos Campos were also heavy and caused floods too (news here, here and here).

In Piracaba, hail and floods were reported on the 6th (news here, here and here). Floods due to heavy rain were reported too in Jundiaí (news here and here), Limeira (news here), Campos de Jordão (news here), São Carlos (news here), Sorocaba (news here), Campinas (news here) and Bragança Paulista (news here). On the 8th, heavy rains also affected several cities. In Campos de Jordão 40 houses were affected by floods, 15 trees falled and there were four landslides (news here and here).

In this entry, satellite, radar and lightning strike images images are presented for March 5th. A second, a third and a fourth entries will present images for the 6th and 7th, respectively.

Lightning strike as detected by Brasildat network within a 180 km radius centered in Campinas can be seen below: