Is there snow in Uruguay?

Uruguay is in a cool zone, so in any part of its territory there are cold winters and hot summers. The difference between seasons is not extreme, neither much heat in summer, as it can do in an area closer to the Ecuador, nor too cold in winter, in fact, in Uruguay it is very strange that snow falls.

The winter months are between June and September, and July is usually the coldest month of the year. The average temperature in this season is between 5 and 15 degrees Celsius. The days are generally somewhat milder than the nights, when the temperature drops some degrees. Strong winds are quite frequent during the Uruguayan winter, especially in the coastal zone.

The conditions for snowfall are a combination of several factors: a polar air mass must come to lower the temperature, no wind, a low cloud cover and high atmospheric pressure. If these conditions occur at the same time, which is very rare in this country, then we have snow.

Despite the few probabilities, on July 4, 1960, the Department of Treinta y Tres received a great snowfall, as has not been seen since, which even reached enough to make snowmen. The Historical Museum of the city of Treinta y Tres preserves photographs of this unusual snowfall.

At the Instituto Uruguayo de Meteorología (Uruguayan Institute of Meteorology) they also recorded a snowfall that occurred some years ago in the Sierras de las Animas, a mountain range located in the Department of Maldonado, more than 500 meters above the sea level.

Although it is very rare that there is a snowfall in Uruguay and these phenomena are preserved in the collective memory as historical events, it is more frequent to see icy water, which is a mixture of rain and small snowflakes that melt before reaching the floor.