Locals fascinated as rare heavy snow covers Brazil

Dude! What’s this cold white stuff doing here?
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Brazil has experienced rare heavy snowfall since Thursday, threatening crops and bewildering locals who don’t usually see snow, reports The Independent.

More than 40 cities in the state of Rio Grande do Sul had icy conditions and at least 33 municipalities had snow, reported the meteorology company Somar Meteorologia.

On Friday, there were warnings of cold temperatures as a polar air mass travelled toward the centre-south of the agricultural powerhouse, threatening coffee, sugarcane and orange crops with frost.

The unusually cold temperature in the country has already forced coffee prices to rise.

Cars, streets and highways were this week covered in ice while people took the opportunity to take pictures and play in the snow, building snowmen.

Local television footage showed Brazilians building a snowman in a plaza and having a snowball fight in Bom Jesus, a city in Rio Grande do Sul state.

Sixty-four-year-old driver Iodor Goncalves Marques told the TV Globo network “I am 62 years old and had never seen the snow, you know? To see nature’s beauty is something indescribable.”

Though snow blizzards and freezing temperatures aren’t common in Brazil, when it does occur it is usually during the months of June, July and August.

The last time snow engulfed parts of the country in the same way, it was in 1957.

Full report here.