If you’ve been reading us for a while you’re probably aware by now that we are big fans of Google Maps and its use to support travel planning (we talked about it at GoogleMaps on the Brazil Travel Blog).

Google has just added a new weather layer to its Google Maps (you can read the official announcement at Rain or Shine, see the weather on Google Maps).

If you enter Google Maps and go to the widget on the top right corner where you select the different view modes (Map, Earth, Traffic, Photos and so on) you will see there is a new layer called “Weather”. If you select it, you will see weather-related symbols appearing on your map. We’ll be using Rio de Janeiro as our example:

If you click on the symbol next to Rio (sun and cloud) you will see a pop up window with the forecast for the coming days (as my settings for the Google Apps are in Spanish I’m seeing the info in Spanish, you will see it in English).

If you click on 10 days you will get yet more weather information.

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The Brazil Travel Blog now has a new page, the weather centre, that gives quick access to climate and weather data for the most visited destinations in the country. As usual, suggestions for new inclusions are accepted. You can access the weather centre anytime through the pages menu at the top of the page.

Summer is the rainy season in most of Brazil. In the tropics, it is also the season of the violent summer storms. When the afternoon begins, the skies grow dark, the day turns into night, the streetlights switch themselves on, and the skies open their floodgates for the torrential rain to pour down over the cities.

The rainiest months in London are December and January, with a historical average of 79 mm of rain for the each month. In New York, the rainiest month appears to be July, with an average of 115mm. In São Paulo’s rainiest month, a total of 241 mm are recorded. In the interior of the state of São Paulo, a whopping 650 mm were recorded in January this year.

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In the south east region of Brazil, along with the summer come the tropical storms. Large cities like São Paulo, Rio or Belo Horizonte are shaken by violent storms that flood the streets, uproot trees and wreck havoc wherever they go.

Tropical storms occur at the end of a hot day. They usually don’t last long, between half and hour and a couple of hours maximum. But during that short period of time, it pours down non-stop. During a tropical storm it’s very important to stay where you are – don’t attempt to walk on the streets. In flood-prone areas, be careful where you stay. Prepare some coffee and wait for the storm to go away.

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In a country the size of Brazil, it is very difficult to make general comments on the climate. At the same moment in time, a temperature of –2° C can be registered in the mountains in the south of the country while the Northeast registers 43° C.

In general, the seasons in the south of the country are well defined – the further to the south, the bigger the differences between seasons. It is cold in winter, hot during the summer. In the north, there are just two basic seasons: winter and summer. What differenciates one from the other is the rain – it is always hot. It doesn’t rain in winter; it doesn’t stop raining during the summer. Or the other way around because, to complicate things even more, in some places winter, and not summer, is the rainy season.

The Weather Channel’s Portuguese web site is an excellent starting point, as it shows historical averages for a sizeable number of destinations. Click, for example, on Rio de Janeiro, and then on Médias e Registro to see monthly average values for rain and temperatures.

The weather is an important factor when it comes to decide what to visit. For instance, it is not worth visiting the Lençóis Maranhenses during the summer, when it doesn’t stop raining and the lagoons are nearly empty. Or it is not worth going to Fernando de Noronha in December, when 2 and 3 meter-high waves make snorkelling impossible near the beach.

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