Tour guides say a strong El Nino dried up a Brazilian waterfall and cut the tourist season short

Tour guides at the Véu de Noiva waterfall in Roraima, in Brazil’s far north, say a strong El Niño dried up the falls by late July 2026 and ended a visitor season that normally runs from May to early September. Mongabay reporter Felipe Medeiros visited with guide Fredson Guedes and published the account on October 29. Fábio Wankler, a geologist and professor at the Federal University of Roraima, names a “super El Niño” as the driver of the disruption.

Stay ahead on AI: Join 600,000+ professionals who read The Deep View, the daily newsletter that keeps you up to date with artificial intelligence.

Subscribe to The Deep View →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.

Guedes, 55, who is known as Tarzan, told Mongabay that there is no waterfall anymore and that it dried up. He takes tourists up the Branco River to the falls at least twice a week in season. The late-July run became his last of 2026, because he judged that a trip with no water was not worth selling. On the way back, his boat ran aground on sandbars exposed by the low river.

A waterfall that switched off in July

The falls sit in the Serra Grande ecotourism area of Cantá, about 50 kilometers from the state capital, Boa Vista. According to Mongabay’s report, the season usually draws visitors during the rainy months from May through early September, but in 2026 the water had vanished by late July. Ivaldo Araújo, who owns the farm where the falls are, said the high season normally lasts about five months and brings about 6,000 visitors on average. He told the reporter that visitor numbers halved after only three months of rain, and he put the loss at roughly R$500,000, or about $100,000.

Guedes’s income fell from about R$1,200 a week for two weekend days to about R$800, and he now runs beach trips, rents kayaks and paddleboards, and guides trail hikes on any day of the week. Elen Dias, a tourism technician and business owner, said the loss of rain disrupted a travel route that had been on the rise, and that the local economy heats up on rainy days.

What scientists attribute, and what they leave open

The causal claim here comes from named local voices. Wankler told Mongabay that weather shifts have caused longer and more intense periods of drought, and he explained that water in the area is stored mainly in bedrock fractures and in shallow, moist soils at the mountaintops that refill during the rainy season. Mongabay’s own framing is that reduced rainfall in Roraima, driven by a super El Niño, lowered river levels and cut off the flow of seasonal waterfalls.

The federal forecasters speak more cautiously. The Climate Prediction Center’s October 8 ENSO diagnostic discussion keeps an El Niño Advisory in place, puts the Niño-3.4 index at +2.1 degrees Celsius, and calls a strong-to-very strong El Niño likely through January to March 2027, with a chance above 83 percent. It also gives the odds of a historic three-month reading of +2.5 degrees or more: 54 percent for September to November, 83 percent for October to December and 70 percent for November to January. On impacts, the discussion says only that the chances of experiencing impacts consistent with El Niño are larger, though not guaranteed. The passages read name no waterfall and no Roraima outcome, so the link between this ocean pattern and this particular waterfall rests on the guides, Wankler and Mongabay’s reporting rather than on a NOAA attribution study.

The center’s earlier August 13 discussion put the July Niño-3.4 value at +1.4 degrees and a better than 90 percent chance of a very strong event in the 2026-27 fall and winter, with the same caution that impacts are not guaranteed.

Rain, rivers and fire across Roraima

Mongabay reports that Brazil’s national meteorological institute, INMET, says rainfall in Roraima stayed below historical averages all year, including June and July, the usually wettest months. INMET’s own June El Niño bulletin is more general: its July to September outlook, produced with CPTEC/INPE and FUNCEME, gave higher odds of below-average rain in parts of the Region North without naming Roraima, and the national drought monitor still showed Roraima free of drought in May.

The dry conditions then showed up in other records. Mongabay cites federal data showing 87 fire hotspots in Roraima through August 27, the most on record for the period and above the previous August high of 78 in 2023. Portal Amazônia, citing INPE, reported 2,107 hotspots in the state from January through October 11, 36.9 percent above the 1,539 counted in all of 2025, in a report that also says the state has been in a drought emergency since September 2 and that the Branco River measured 60 centimeters at Boa Vista on October 12 against 98 centimeters on September 12. Another Portal Amazônia report carries a sector technical note estimating a 30 to 50 percent drop in Roraima’s 2026 harvest.

Livelihoods along the Branco River

Roraima declared a 180-day state of emergency in early September, according to Mongabay, with a task force, extra firefighters in all 15 municipalities and artesian wells for water shortages. The pillars of the Macuxis Bridge are exposed by the low river, which supplies Boa Vista’s drinking water. Wankler warned of more fires and smoke and of a possible regional water crisis, and he called for early warning systems, contingency plans, funds for affected residents and income diversification.

The calendar ahead is unclear. Mongabay says El Niño’s effects are projected to extend into early 2027, the Climate Prediction Center expects a strong-to-very strong event through January to March 2027, and Portal Amazônia’s reading of the sector note has the dry spell lasting until March 2027. None of the sources says whether the falls will run again when the rains return.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

Stay ahead on AI: Subscribe to The Deep View →

We may earn a commission if you sign up.