MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Snow blankets Mar del Plata as a record polar cold wave grips Argentina

Hundreds of residents and tourists took to the streets to photograph the beaches, squares and parks turned white, and the images quickly went viral on social media

The seaside city of Mar del Plata, one of the main tourist destinations on Argentina's Atlantic coast, woke up covered in snow on Thursday, an unusual sight for a temperate-climate city that became the most widely shared image of the intense polar cold wave sweeping the country. Thermometers read around 1 degree below zero, with a wind-chill close to -3 °C, and snow and sleet were recorded from the early hours in various parts of the General Pueyrredón district, with heavier accumulation in the Sierra de los Padres area.

Hundreds of residents and tourists took to the streets to photograph the beaches, squares and parks turned white, and the images quickly went viral on social media. It was an exceptional phenomenon: snow had not covered the city in this way for more than a decade. Historical records of snowfall in Mar del Plata are scarce and isolated; among the most remembered are the major snowfall of August 1, 1991 —the most intense, with accumulations of more than 20 centimeters— and later, shorter episodes in 2004 and 2007.

The event was part of a polar air mass of Antarctic origin that has affected much of Argentina since the start of July and that the National Meteorological Service (SMN) had forecast. The agency kept extreme-temperature alerts in place across 18 provinces, and more than 30 cities recorded sub-zero readings. The most severe marks were measured in Patagonia, with as low as -14 °C in towns in Río Negro. A striking detail of the day was that the City of Buenos Aires at times recorded a wind-chill lower than that of Argentina's Antarctic base Esperanza.

Snow and sleet also reached other unusual locations, such as Miramar, Tres Arroyos and Necochea on the Buenos Aires coast, as well as highland areas of Córdoba, Tucumán and Catamarca, and the Cuyo provinces of Mendoza and San Juan, where some roads were closed due to ice accumulation. Although in Mar del Plata the proximity of the sea usually moderates temperatures, the combination of polar air, humidity and southerly winds created the conditions for snowfall.

The SMN forecast that the cold would persist over the coming days, with Friday as a possible coldest day of the year in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, before a slight warming toward the weekend. Authorities recommended that people dress in layers, take extra care when traveling due to possible ice formation, and ventilate heated rooms to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.

Location	Approx. minimum temperature
Maquinchao (Río Negro)	-14 °C
Trelew (Chubut)	-13 °C
El Palomar (Buenos Aires)	-7 °C
Mar del Plata (Buenos Aires)	-1 °C (wind-chill -3.4 °C)
Buenos Aires City	-1.9 °C