Brazil has sweltered through its hottest day since record-keeping began, as an extreme spring heat wave envelopes the country.
By the numbers: The town of Araçuaí, in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, beat the nation's previous record from November 2005 on Sunday when the temperature reached 44.8°C (112.6°F), per Brazil's National Institute of Meteorology.
The planet likely briefly exceeded a key warming threshold on Friday and Saturday for the first time since at least the beginning of instrument records, new data shows.
Driving the news: The indication that Friday and Saturday were the first two days on record to have a global average surface temperature above 2°C when compared with preindustrial levels, emerged first from a dataset maintained by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
