Synoptic weather types in the south of South America and their relationship to daily rainfall in the core crop-producing region in Argentina

Introduction The Argentine Pampas Region extends over 600 000 km2 and is one of the most important crop-producing regions in the world (SAGPyA 2008) (Fig. 1(a), shaded rectangle). In this region, extreme rainfall events often occur and have a significant socio-economic impact. In Argentina, irrigation is very rarely used, and rainfall and its spatio-temporal variability are therefore crucial for successful harvests. Rainfall events depend, among other factors, on the largescale atmospheric fields. There are two main approaches in synoptic climatology to investigate the links between localscale environmental features and large-scale circulation Synoptic weather types in the south of South America and their relationship to daily rainfall in the core crop-producing region in Argentina