The climate of the coast region—that is, of a country consisting almost entirely of plains—is, in general, influenced by the winds, which blow in gales at all seasons. Northerly and southerly gales are the most common; the first especially are very frequent. In Buenos Ayres one finds, during the summer, an alternation of sea and land breezes; the one during the day, the other during the night.
The northerly winds are always hot and even suffocating;
they influence the nervous system, afflicting some people with neuralgic troubles. When these winds blow, the air is charged with electricity, until, the tension of the atmosphere having grown insupportable, a tempest comes to restore the equilibrium, to give place to another wind, coming from the south-west, and known as the pampero. This wind does not often last long, but it attains a velocity equal to that of a full hurricane. The pampero, so called because it is formed in the region of the pampas, is a wind full of ozone, and as such plays its part in disinfecting the vitiated air of the urban centres. But the effects of the pampero, and especially of the south-westerly winds, on the Rio de la Plata, where they produce a violent swell, are sometimes terrible.
As for the rain, there is no regularity in its fall; which naturally tends to render the results of culture and of cattle-breeding variable. Rains are more frequent in summer and autumn than at other times; while the least rainfall is that of winter. At Buenos Ayres it is rare for a month to pass without rain, which is often torrential, and accompanied by hail.
The climate of the central region, if we except the mountainous portions of the Provinces of San Luis and Córdoba, is distinguished from the seaboard region by its greater dryness and its sudden variations of temperature. In the plain the summers are very hot, and it is not uncommon to see the thermometer at 104°; while during the winter there are very hard frosts. As on the coast, northerly and southerly winds are the most frequent. Rain is rarer than on the coast, and falls almost exclusively in summer and in autumn: with rare exceptions the winter is perfectly dry.
In the Andean region the climate varies according to the height above sea-level, but is always characterised by sudden variations in the daily temperature, and by excessive dryness. On the eastern slope of the Andes and the plateaux of the north it never rains. These regions are continually swept by furious winds, which make agriculture impossible. To the intense heat of the day succeeds the cold of the night, with differences of temperature that sometimes amount to 68° in twenty-four hours.
The climate of the Argentine, with a few exceptions, has
the reputation of being extremely healthy, on account of the sudden changes of temperature and the dryness of the air predominant over the greater part of the country. These atmospheric conditions are, to be sure, not favourable to affections of the lungs; but, on the other hand, they contribute to prevent epidemics. We find that among adults and adolescents the figures of mortality are no higher than the average figures for the healthiest countries in the world. The statistics drawn up by the City of Buenos Ayres even show that foreigners have a longer expectation of life than the indigenous population.
In matters of climate one must be careful not to become confused, as so many Europeans do, between our Argentine Republic and the neighbouring country of Brazil, which is nearer the equatorial zone. Favourable to human health, the Argentine climate is also, as we shall see, particularly favourable to most kinds of agriculture and to the breeding of cattle; from this point of view it is a privileged land, which calls only for labour to become productive.
For a greater part of its area the Argentine soil unites the geological and climatic conditions favourable to the production of cereals and for stock-raising. It is in the fertility of the cultivated lands and the richness of the pastures that the whole economic value of the country resides.