Ushuaia, Argentina, Just Recorded Its Least Snowy Winter in 40 Years

Ushuaia, the Argentine city famously billed as “the end of the world” and gateway to the Southern Andes’ ski terrain, just recorded its lowest winter snowfall since systematic measurements began in 1985 — a genuine 40-year low, according to newly released data from the region’s own weather monitoring network. According to data from the Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC) Weather Station, provided by the Environmental and Geographic Information Service (SIAG), the 2026 meteorological winter — June, July, and August — produced the least snowfall Ushuaia has recorded in four full decades of data.

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The shortage wasn’t the result of a simple lack of storms — it was the product of a frustrating mismatch between temperature and precipitation that persisted across all three winter months. June actually brought total precipitation well above average. The problem was timing: the month also recorded some of the highest average temperatures of the past 30 years, meaning nearly all of that precipitation fell as rain instead of snow. July swung the other way. It was a genuinely cold month — but also one of the driest in the historical record, with just 9.2 millimeters (0.36 inches) of precipitation recorded for the entire month. August split the difference in the worst possible way, combining scarce rainfall with above-average temperatures.

“When there was abundant rainfall, the temperatures were too high for it to fall as snow, and when it was cold enough, the rainfall was scarce. This combination explains the reduced amount of snow that fell during the winter of 2026.”

— CADIC

The 2026 winter didn’t come out of nowhere. According to CADIC geologist and researcher Federico Ponce, the decline in Ushuaia’s snowfall has been building for roughly a decade, with a sharp acceleration after 2020. “That winter marked a minimum in the amount of snow that fell since 1985, which is when the weather station began recording this data. Over 40 years, we could say this is the meteorological winter that recorded the least amount of snow,” Ponce said in the press release.

Ponce noted that the downward trend has been visible since around 2016, but that 2026 fell even below the low point already set during the accelerated 2020-2025 decline. He linked the pattern directly to warming temperatures across the region. “The amount of snowfall has been decreasing year after year since approximately 2016, and that’s especially visible after 2020,” Ponce said, connecting the decline to rising average annual and winter temperatures. Drawing on glacier studies conducted since roughly 2011, he pointed to a measured temperature increase on the order of 0.7 to 0.9 degrees Celsius, tying the pattern to broader atmospheric warming observed across southern Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia, and globally.

Every meteorological winter since 2020 has recorded below-average snowfall compared to the 30-year mean, according to the CADIC/SIAG records — meaning 2026 didn’t just have one bad season, it extended a run of six consecutive below-average winters. Whether this constitutes a statistically significant long-term trend, as opposed to a run of unusually poor years, would require further dedicated analysis, researchers noted.

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Ushuaia is best known in ski circles as the gateway to Cerro Castor, the southernmost ski resort on Earth, located about 26 kilometers (16 miles) outside the city. Cerro Castor has weathered its own share of lean, late-starting seasons in recent years — including a 2016 season that saw its opening delayed five separate times due to a lack of snow.

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While this specific data comes from Ushuaia’s city weather station rather than from Cerro Castor’s own on-mountain measurements, the pattern is a relevant warning sign for a resort whose entire identity is built around having the longest, most reliable season in South America thanks to its far-southern latitude and cold climate. A warming trend robust enough to turn winter precipitation into rain even during Ushuaia’s historically snowiest months is exactly the kind of shift that could put pressure on that reputation over time.