Meteorological events causing extreme winds in Brazil

The meteorological events that cause most strong winds in Brazil are extra-tropical cyclones, downbursts and tornadoes. However, one hurricane formed off the coastline of southern Brazil in 2005, a tropical storm formed in 2010 and there are predictions that others may form again. Events such as those described in the paper and which have occurred before 1987, generate data for the wind map presented in the Brazilian wind loading code NBR-6123. This wind map presents the reference wind speeds based on 3-second gust wind speed at 10 m height in open terrain, with 50-year return period, varying from 30 m/s (north half of country) to 50 m/s (extreme south). There is not a separation of the type of climatological event which generated each registered velocity. Therefore, a thunderstorm (TS), an extra-tropical pressure system (EPS) or even a tropical cyclone (TC) are treated the same and its resulting velocities absorbed without differentiation. Since the flow fields generated by each type of meteorological event may be distinct, the indiscriminate combination of the highest wind velocities with aerodynamic coefficients from boundary layer wind tunnels may lead to erroneous loading in buildings.