Argentina’s weather service issued yellow alerts for extreme cold and strong winds for Monday, June 15, covering much of the country from Buenos Aires and La Pampa to Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. The warning comes as the long weekend ends with temperatures already under pressure in the Buenos Aires metro area and little relief until Tuesday.
The Servicio Meteorológico Nacional said the cold can be dangerous, especially for children, people over 65 and those with chronic illnesses. In the south of Buenos Aires and La Pampa, lows could fall to -2°C, while Corrientes is expected to bottom out near 7°C. In the city of Buenos Aires, Monday’s forecast calls for 2°C to 15°C; in the province of Buenos Aires, -1°C to 14°C; in Córdoba, 2°C to 17°C; and in Santa Fe, -1°C to 15°C.
The alert also reaches Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego, where the concern is not only the cold but the wind. In low-lying areas there, forecasters expect sustained winds of 40 to 60 kilometers per hour and gusts of up to 100. Tierra del Fuego is also set for up to 6 degrees and southerly winds near 60 km/h on Sunday and Monday.
By Sunday morning, the AMBA had already logged 2.8 degrees at 8 a.m., with a thermal sensation of 2 degrees at 5 a.m. The same system left almost all of Buenos Aires province, northeast La Pampa, southeast San Luis, southern Córdoba, southern San Juan and western Chubut under yellow alerts for low temperatures over the weekend, and the cold was described as coming from a front from Patagonia.
That pattern is also expected to bring rain in the center of the country and snow in the Cordillera. In the AMBA, the cold should linger below 10 degrees for the rest of the long weekend, but the forecast points to improvement from Tuesday, when the sky is expected to stay clear and temperatures begin to rise. The larger question is not whether the cold will break, but how long each province stays under alert before conditions ease.
