In Qatar, all the teams will be performing on a level playing field, even if it’s a particularly hot one.By Steff GaulterThere has been a lot of debate about the wisdom of playing the World Cup in Qatar’s summer. Obviously we all know how hot Doha is in the summer, but why hasn’t FIFA considered the impact of weather on sporting tournaments before? After all, take a look back at some of the other locations for the World Cup. Finals have been played in Rome, Mexico City, Los Angeles and Madrid. These aren’t cold places! I went to Madrid one August, to see the band U2 play and learnt the phrase ‘cerrado por agosto’ (closed for August). Most of the shops and cafés displayed the sign on their doors, and only a handful remained open. The majority of the people we saw were tourists. I don’t know why the locals all leave for August really, because July is actually a hotter month; yet this was the month that the World Cup final was played, a month when the average maximum temperature is 32°C (90°F) and the temperature can climb to over 40°C(104°F).Suffice to say that in some of these hot locations, the quality of the football has been somewhat affected. Arguably, one of the worst finals was that played in the US in 1994 between Brazil and Italy. Two hours of dull and turgid football was played in the searing heat of Los Angeles and even the penalty shootout was a drag until Roberto Baggio blasted his spot kick over the bar.The average maximum temperature in Los Angeles in July is 27°C (81°F), which is obviously a world away from Doha’s average maximum of 41°C (106°F). There is no question that it would be too hot to play football in a temperature anywhere near 41°C, but with air conditioning promised in the stadia, the concern seems to be more about how the fans will cope with the heat.FIFA has set up a task force to consider moving the 2022 World Cup from its usual slot in June-July and it is now more or less assumed that the tournament will be played at a different time of year. As far as exercise is concerned, most athletes perform at their best when the temperature is close to 21°C (70F). This doesn’t have to be the maximum temperature of the day, just the air temperature when the exercise is taking place. It’s likely that the World Cup matches in Qatar will be played in the late afternoon or evening, which would suggest the tournament would best be held from late November into December or mid-February into March.Whatever time of year the World Cup is played in Qatar, at least everyone will be on a level playing field. In Brazil, things are slightly different. The country is huge. It’s a little larger than Australia, and spans 4,395km (2,730miles) from north to south. In the north, is the vast Amazon rainforest, where the weather is hot and humid throughout the year. There is plenty of rain, with many places seeing over 2,000 mm (80 inches) in a year. This is three times as much as London expects in a year, and twice as much as Seattle. The rain is tropical and the temperature barely varies during the year; the maximum temperature hovers between 28°C to 32°C (82°F to 90°F).However, the climate in southern Brazil is very different. It’s far more dependent on the seasons: in the summer, the weather can be unbearably hot, but in the winter it is distinctly cooler. In fact, at times winter can feel bitterly cold thanks to icy blasts of air known as friagens, which sweep in from the Antarctic.These cold snaps are often preceded by torrential downpours. As the rain clears, the friagem can drag the temperatures down further than you might think. During one of these icy blasts, frost is not uncommon in the far southern states, even by the coast. Snow is rare, but not unheard of; towards the end of July this year, an icy blast delivered snow to dozens of cities in southern Brazil, and the temperature in some locations dropped as low as minus 7°C (19°F). In the city of Curitiba, where some of the matches in the World Cup are being played, the temperature dropped to an icy minus 3°C (27°F).The World Cup is being played in Brazil in June and July. For the southern hemisphere, this is the winter, and the time when friagens make a nuisance of themselves. However, in the north of the country, tropical conditions will continue unabated. The high humidity and high temperatures can make the climate of northern Brazil quite unpleasant for those who are unfamiliar with the hot, tropical conditions.It takes six weeks for your body to fully acclimatise to the local conditions, and most professional sports people like to spend at least two weeks adjusting to a new climate, this changing of venues could well lead to some teams having a distinct disadvantage. If one match is played in the chilly south, but their next fixture is in the tropical north, it might be quite a challenge for them to perform at their best. It goes to show that weather is not something to be taken for granted particularly when it comes to sport. At least in Qatar, all the teams will be performing on a level playing field, even if it’s a particularly hot one.(The author is Senior Weather Presenter at Al Jazeera English channel. She can be contacted on steff.gaulter@yahoo.co.uk or on Twitter at @WeatherSteff)