September starts with winds of nearly 100 km/h

September starts with very strong winds and gusts close to 100 km/h in Rio Grande do Sul due to a combination of atmospheric factors involving pressure differences in the Center-South of South America. On Monday morning, the wind gusts reached 52 knots (96 km/h) at the Porto de Rio Grande bar, in the South of the state. The wind started yesterday and gained strength on Monday. Due to the very strong to intense wind, with gusts sometimes close to 100 km/h, and rough seas, operations at the Porto de Rio Grande were suspended with conditions reported as totally impracticable by the port’s pilotage service. The wind blows moderate to very strong in other areas of Rio Grande do Sul as well. INMET stations recorded gusts of up to 75 km/h in Rio Grande and Soledade by late morning today, 71 km/h in Vacaria, and 70 km/h in São José dos Ausentes. Private automatic stations recorded gusts of up to 93 km/h in Rolante by late Monday morning, 88 km/h in Soledade, 77 km/h at the Morro das Antenas in Teutônia, and 72 km/h in Picada Café. In Porto Alegre, the wind in this episode was not as strong as in other areas of the state, with gusts up to 42 km/h at the Jangadeiros station in the South of the capital today and 44 km/h yesterday. In the far South, at Hermenegildo beach in Santa Vitória do Palmar, Monday dawned with very strong winds and frequent gusts of 70 to 80 km/h. Further north on the coast, in Mostardas, the road to Balneário Mostardense was covered in sand again due to the strong winds, as had already happened during the extratropical cyclone in August. Due to the very strong wind on Monday, isolated power outages were reported by readers of MetSul Meteorologia in different parts of the Rio Grande do Sul coast.