Eventos meteorológicos extremos e desastres naturais decorrentes de tempestades severas na região geográfica imediata de Chapecó/SC

Abstract

Natural disasters arising from extreme meteorological events have become increasingly frequent and intense in the recent Years. In addition, severe storms are often related to extreme episodes that causes natural disasters. Extreme meteorological events are considered to be those that exceed the proportions of a regular event, causing considerable damage to the environment and to the society. The southern region of Brazil is the portion of the country with the highest frequency of natural disasters originated from severe storms, with emphasis on the western of Santa Catarina state. The region ́s geographic location allows a wide variability of meteorological systems acting throughout the year, interfering with weather conditions, causing atmospheric instability in the region. The present study sought to catalog the occurrence of natural disasters and extreme meteorological events derived from severe storms in the Immediate Geographic Region of Chapecó (RGIC), in Santa Catarina, between the years of 2013 and 2023, based on data obtained through reports from the Integrated System of Disaster Information (S2iD) and documentary research carried out on online portals of the newspapers Diário do Iguaçu (DI) and Notícias do Dia (ND+), two journalistic vehicles with regional influence. The data survey carried out showed that there is a large gap in the systematization of the data in this specific region, as the DI and ND+ portals recorded 395 occurrences, while S2iD contained only 54 records. Furthermore, the study has shown that the phenomenons with the highest incidence in the RGIC are gales, followed by heavy rainfalls, hail, lightning storms and tornadoes. The years that presented the highest succession of cases were 2023, 2015, 2020 and 2022, respectively, and the season that recorded the highest incidence of extreme events was the spring.