Cream of the Crop 12/Cream of the Crop 12 (Part II)/Cream of the Crop 12 (Part II).iso/BBS/SHADOW2.ZIP/6.EMA

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Ladson, South Carolina USA [phone] DS v32/42
Source: National Weather Service, Charleston, SC

---->   The Year Without A Summer


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                     [phone]/873-9600/871-9771 HS's



                        THE YEAR WITHOUT A SUMMER
                            By Patrick Hughes


 The year 1816 is legendary in tha annals of weather. It has been Called
"the year without a summer," "poverty year," and "eighteen hundred
froze to death."

 From May through September, an unprecedented series of cold spells
chilled the northeastern United States and  adjoining  Canadian
provinces, causing a backward spring, a cold summer, and an early fall.
There was heavy snow in June and Frost even in July and August.  All
across the Northeast, farmers crops were repeatedly killed by the cold,
raising the specter of widespread famine.

 The amazing weather of 1816 is well documented in the diaries and
memoirs of those who endured it. Benjamin Harrison, a farmer in
bennington, Vt. termed it "the most gloomy and extraordinary weather
ever seen."  Chauncey  Jerome of Plymouth, Conn., writing in 1860,
recalled:
 I well remember the 7th of June.  .  .
dressed throughout with thick woolen clothes and an overcoat on. My
hands got so cold that I was obliged to lay down my tools and put on a
pair of mittens. . .On the 10th of June, my wife brought in some clothes
that had been spread on the ground the night before, which were frozen
stiff as in winter. On the 4th of July, I saw several men pitching
quoits in the middle of the day with overcoats on and the sun shining
bright at the time.

 Since relatively few settlers had yet crossed the Mississippi, most of
our weather observations for 1816 come from the eastern United States,
particularly the Northeast, where there was a tradition of weather
watching. The best observations available were made at Williamstown,
in the northwestern corner of Massachusetts.

 April and May 1816 were both cold months over the Northeast, with frost
retarding spring planting. Flowers were late in blooming and many fruit
trees did not blossom until the end of May - only to have their budding
leaves and blossoms killed by a hard frost which also destroyed corn
and some other plants

 Warm weather finally came to all parts of the Northeast during the
first
few days of June. Farmers forgot the frost of May and began replanting
their crops. But even as they labored, a cold front was approaching that
would bring disaster. .  .

 Following the frontal passage, temperatures tumbled dramatically under
the onslaught of Arctic air. At noon on June 5, the temperature at
Wiliiamstown was 83 degrees. By 7am on the 6th, it had dropped to 45
degrees - the highest temperature recorded for the day. All across
central New England, early morning temperatures were the highest
recorded for the day.

 From June 6 to 9, severe frost occurred every night from Canada to
Virginia. Ice was reported near Philadelphia and "every green herb
was killed, and vegetables of every description very much injured."
In northern Vermont, the ice was an inch thick on standing water
while elsewhere in the state icicles were to be seen a foot long...
corn and other vegetables were killed to the ground, and upon the
high lands the leaves of the trees withered and fell off."

 People shivered, dug out their winter clothing and built roaring
fires. Farmers watched helplessly as their budding fields and gardens
blackened and in northern towns newly shorn sheep, though sheltered,
perished. Thousands of birds also froze to death, as did millions of
the yellow cucumber bug.

 The culmination of this remarkable cold wave came early on the 1lth
of June: At Williamstown the observer noted, "Heavy  frost-vegetables
killed at 5 o'clock temperature 30.5 degrees."  Overall, frost killed
almost all the corn in New England, the main food staple, as well as
most garden vegetables.

 There were two snowfalls. The first on the 6th, brought relatively
light snow to the highlands of western and northern New York State
and most of Vermont, New Hampshire,and Maine. the second occurred
during the night of June 7-8, following the passage of a second cold
front. It brought moderate to heavy snow to northern New England,
with lighter snow and snow flurries extending eastward to the coast
and southward through northern Massachusetts and New York State's
Catskill Mountains.

 The following account appeared in the Danville, Vermont, NORTH STAR:
  Melancholy  Weather . . . On the night of the 7th and morning of the
8th a kind of sleet or exceeding cold snow fell, attended by high wind,
and measured in places where it drifted 18 to 20 inches in depth.
Saturday morning (8th) the weather was more severe than it generally is
in the winter. It was indeed a gloomy and tedious period.

 In Canada. Montreal had snow squalls on both the 6th and 8th of June,
while 12 inches of snow accumulated near Quebec city from the 6th to the
10th, with some drifts "reaching the axle terss of carriages."

 This first summer cold spell was followed by 4 weeks of relatively
good weather. Farmers again replanted, and crops were growing well when,
at the end of the first week in July, a new cold outbreak came.
Although not as severe as the one in June, it killed corn, beans,
cucumbers, and squash in northern New England, and soon had local
farmers talking about the threat of a general famine.

 Once again, the remainder of the month was more seasonable, though
there was another cool spell around the 18th. The hardier grains
such as wheat and rye, however, came along well, and by August farmers
were joking about their earlier "famine fever."

 On August 20, another cold wave arrived, tumbIing temperatures in
New Hampshire some 30 degrees. During the next 2 days, frost was
reported as far east as Portland, Maine, and as far south as East
Windsor, Conn. Travelers between Albany, New York and Boston reported
most of the corn in low-lying areas destroyed.

 A more severe frost came at the end of August: In Keene, N:H., it put
an end to the hopes of many corn growers, and whole fields had to be
cut up for fodder.

 The first week of September was relativly warm, but around the 11th
and 12th a cold outbreak again visited the Northeast with hard frost
reported in northern and central New England. it was the widespread
and killing frost of September 27th however, which irrevocably closed
out this dismal growing season and destroyed all hopes of even a small
corn harvest in northern New England.

 A Concord N.H, paper reported:
Indian corn on which a large portion of the poor depend is cut off.
It is believed that through New England scarcely a tenth part of
the usual crop...will be gathered. In Montreal it was said that...
many parishs in Quebec must inevitably be in a state of famine
before winter sets in. During the severe winter of 1816-1817 which
followed. the threat of starvation or semistarvation became reality
for manny.

 The first general migration from New England to the Midwest occurred
the following year. Although there were other factors involved, it is
interesting  to note that the three northern States of Vermont, New
Hampshire, and Maine, which bore the brunt of the cold weather,
suffered the greatest exodus.

 ln summary, the chief weather abnormalities of 1816 were the series of
totally unexpected cold spells that occurred continuously through late
spring, summer, and earlyv fall and of course, the June snow.

 New England temperatures averaged 3 to 6 below normal in June and
July, and 2 to 3 degrees below in August. May also had been below
normal as was the follwing September. lt hjad been just as cold (or even
colder) in each of these months in other years, but never consecutively.
More significant however, is the fact that in 1816 the low temperatures
occurred in a region where even a few degrees difference in the minimum
temperature can mean a severe frost.

 Although the New England farmer considered it a local tragedy, the
abnormal weather was widespread throughout the Northern Hemisphere.
In England it was almost as cold as in the United States, and 18l6 was
a famine year there, as it was in France and Germany.

 Actually, 1816 was just one of a famous series of cold years. From
1812 it was cold over the whole world. In the United States, the
depression of summer temperatures was the most remarkable on record.

 According to William Humphreys, a Weather Bureau scientist writing
almost a century later, the cold years were caused largely by volcanic
dust in the earths atmosphere: Such dust partially shields the Earth
from the Sun's rays, but permits heat to escape from the Earth, thus
lowering the temperature.

 Three major volcanic eruptions took place between 1812 and 1817.
Soufriere on St. Vincent Island erupted in 1812; Mayon in the
Philippines in 1814; and Tarnbora on the island of Sumbawa in
Indonesia in 1815. The worst was Tambora, a 13,000-foot volcano that
belched f1ame and ash from April 7 to 12, 1815; and rained stone
fragments on surrounding villages.

 It has been estimated that Tambora's titanic explosion blew from 37
to 100 cubic miles of dust, ashes, and cinders  into  the  atmosphere,
generating a globe-girdling veil of volcanic dust.

 the idea that volcanic dust suspended in the aimosphere might lower
the Earth's temperature has been around for a long time. Like many
other scientific firsts, it can be traced to Benjamin Franklin,
although the thought may not have been original with him. In 1913,
William Humphreys published a now classic paper documenting the
correlation between historic volcanic eruptions and worldwide
temperature depressions.

 According to Humphreys, volcanic dust is some 30 times more effective
in keeping the Sun's radiation out than in keeping the Earth's in.
And once blown into the atmosphere-more specifically; the stratosphere
it may take years for the dust to settle out (the finest particles
from Krakatoa's eruption in 1883, for example, took 2 to 3 years to
reach the ground.) During this period the average temperature of the
whole world may drop a degree or two; while local losses can be
considerably greater.

 The chief effect however, as in 1816, seems to be the dramatic
depression of minimum temperatures during The summer.

 A weak sunspot maximum also preceded the cold summer of 1816. During
May and June, these blemishes on the face of the Sun grew large enough
to be seen with the naked eye and people squinted at them through
smoked glass.

 In Humphreys day, sunspots were thought to reduce the amount of solar
radiation emitted and during a period of maximum occurrence, to
depress the Earths average temperature by as much as a half degree.
As a result, sunspots also were blamed for the trials of the New
England farmer in 1816. Humphreys showed, however, that whatever the
historic correlation between the Earth's average temperature and the
occurrence of sunspot maximums, the most pronounced dips in the world
temperature curve were, without exception, associated with violent
volcanic eruptions that exploded great quantities of dust into the
stratosphere.

 An example is the famous cold year of 1785, which followed the
frightful eruptions of Mount Asama in Japan and Skaptar Jokull in
Iceland. These produced a widely observed "dry fog " the phenomenon
that led Benjamin Franklin to suspect a relationship between cold
weather and volcanic eruptions.

 Volcanic dust is believed to have played a role and perhaps a major
one in the great climatic changes of past ages.  Even relatively
small variations in the Earth's annual mean temperature can cause
widespread changes in Arctic ice packs and world sea levels, in desert
boundaries, and in the geographic limits of plant, animal, and human
life.  According to Humphreys, volcanie dust blown into the stratosphere
once a year or even once every 2 years, would continuously maintain
temperatures low enough to cover the earth with a mantle of snow so
extensive as to be selfperpetuating, and thereby initiate at least
a cool period, or, under the most favorable conditions, even an ice
age.

 The New England farmer of 1816, of course, knew nothing of such
theories, he knew only that something had gone wrong with the weather.
And when that dreadful summer was followed by a winter so severe that
the mercury froze in the thermometers, he must surely have thought the
change was permanent.

Extracts from History of Madison County, New York...

"Town of De Ruyter, Madison County, New York.

 In 1816 came the "cold season".  There was frost in every month. The
 crops were cut off and the meager harvest of grain was nowhere near
 sufficient for the needs of the people. The whole of the newly settled
 interior of New York was also suffering from the same cause. The
 inhabitants saw famine approaching. (The alarm and depression so
 wrought upon the community, that a religious revival ensued.) What
 little grain there was that could be purchased at all was held at
 remarkable prices and this scant supply soon failed. Jonathan Bently at
 one time paid two dollars for a bushel of corn, which when ground
 proved so poor that it was unfit for use: throwing it to his swine,
 they to refused the vile food. Every resource for substenance was
 carefully husbanded; even forest berries and roots were preserved. The
 spring of 1817 developed the worst phases of want. In various sections
 of the county, families were brought to the very verge of starvation!
 One relates that he was obliged to dig up the potatoes he had planted,
 to furnish one meal a day to his famishing family.  Another states that
 his family lived for months without bread, save what was obtained in
 small crusts for his sick mother, and the milk was their chief
 sustenance. When the planting season arrived there was no seed grain in
 De Rutyer, so the inhabitants combined and sent Jeremiah Gage to
 Onondaga county to canvass for wheat and corn. He was absent several
 days and the people, all alive to the importance of his mission, grew
 discouraged, fearing that there was none to be found. At length he was
 seen approaching along the road, his wagon loaded.  a crowd quickly
 gathered; there was great rejoicing and tears stood in strong mens
 eyes. Each family repaired to Gage's house to receive their quota of
 grain and every houshold that day was glad.


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