Buenos Aires or Madrid: which climate?

Buenos Aires (Argentina) has a humid subtropical climate, whereas Madrid (Spain) has a hot-summer mediterranean climate, according to the Köppen-Geiger classification.

The values compared here are normals computed over 86 complete calendar years, from 1940 to 2025, using ERA5 reanalysis data from the Copernicus programme. The same method and the same period apply to Buenos Aires and to Madrid.

Buenos Aires is warmer than Madrid by 3.0 °C in annual average: 17.2 °C against 14.2 °C.

Buenos Aires gets more rain than Madrid: 992 mm per year against 430 mm.

Madrid gets 10.3 hours of sunshine per day on average, against 9.6 hours in Buenos Aires.

Madrid has warmed by +2.4 °C between 1940 and 2025, against +0.6 °C in Buenos Aires. Madrid is therefore warming faster than Buenos Aires. Both trends are statistically significant.

Buenos Aires averages 11 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 0 frost days per year; Madrid averages 65 and 39.

Data from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service), redistributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Normals are recomputed whenever the archive is updated.

IndicatorBuenos AiresMadridDifference
Mean daily temperature17.2 °C14.2 °C-3.0 °C
Average daily high20.4 °C19.8 °C-0.6 °C
Average daily low14.2 °C8.7 °C-5.5 °C
Annual rainfall992 mm430 mm-562 mm
Sunshine / day9.6 h10.3 h+0.7 h
Hot days (≥ 30 °C)11 d/yr65 d/yr+54 d/yr
Frost days (< 0 °C)0 d/yr39 d/yr+39 d/yr
Rainy days (≥ 1 mm)93 d/yr72 d/yr-21 d/yr
Mean relative humidity75 %61 %-14 %
Average peak wind22.6 km/h13.5 km/h-9.1 km/h

A difference is only reported when it exceeds the resolution of the data. ERA5 is a reanalysis on a grid of about 31 km: two nearby cities often fall in the same cell, and below half a degree you are reading the grid, not the climate.

Temperature month by month

Rainfall month by month

Buenos Aires climateMadrid climate