Погода: Мар-дель-Плата, январь

Mar del Plata's forum calls January ultra-peak season on the Argentine coast, warm but not unbearable, with the beaches at their most crowded of the year. Regulars flag it as the height of the Christmas-to-February summer holiday stretch, and suggest early March as a calmer, still-warm alternative once schools are back in session.

Regulars are specific the standard local advice is to pack both winter and summer clothing since you genuinely never know what a given day will bring, any heat wave that does hit typically lasting no more than two or three days before conditions shift again. Our row backs that mild, genuinely wet read, 19.8C over 7.8C nights feeling 5C, with 61.7mm of rain across 7.8 days and a real 23.8 kph wind. Regulars are consistent this counts as a genuinely pleasant month for enjoying the coast without the crowds that arrive later in the summer season, the whole experience reading as more relaxed than the peak months. The sea sits at a cold 12.7C, still far too cold for a comfortable swim. The record: 10.2 hours of sun, humidity 75 percent and AQI 27.

November here is warm enough to enjoy without quite being bathing-suit weather, and regulars describe an odd mix: pleasant sunshine on the sand, but the town itself still has an off-season feel, with plenty of places not yet open and hotel rates still soft. Our row backs the temperature half - 23.5C reading as 24C over 10.6C nights, a real thirteen-degree swing - and the sea half too, 15.9C sitting inside their quoted 12 to 15C range. The wind is a genuine feature of this coast at 24.8 kph. Rain is 81.2mm across 9.4 days. The board's real swimming season, and the surf at Playa Grande, does not properly start until late December. The record: humidity 73 percent, 11.4 hours of sun and AQI 27.

December is the run-up rather than the season. Peak here is Christmas to the end of February with January the worst of it, so the first three weeks are quiet and the last is not. Regulars warn that the forecast flatters the month: it is one of the wetter ones, though the storms pass quickly and rarely take a whole day, and the wind off the ocean makes even a warm afternoon feel cooler than the number. Our row measures that wind at 24.5 kph against 26.6C days, with nights down at 13.2C. The sea they describe as cool and refreshing is 18.3C. Rain comes to 84mm across 9.3 days. The record: humidity 71 percent, 12.2 hours of sun inside 14.7 of daylight and AQI 30.

Peak season here runs from just after Christmas to the end of February, so this is the last full month of it: very dense crowds on the good beaches, apartment prices still at their highest, and January and February the warmest of the year at highs in the upper 70s and low 80s Fahrenheit. Our row's 27.3C matches. Two things temper the picture. The nights fall to 15.4C, a twelve-degree swing that is cool for a beach town, and the South Atlantic stays at 21.3C rather than anything Mediterranean. For the same coast without the crush, regulars point to Mar de las Pampas, Carilo and Pinamar, all reachable by bus. The record: 94.2mm across 9.2 precipitation days, 10.8 hours of sun and AQI 30.