Keeping our recent weather in mind, if you had been around in the year 1816, surely even the unpredictable New England seasons would have had you worried about the weather. That year is known in weather circles as “The Year Without a Summer”: Yes, you read it right. Now read on — if you dare!

The winter of 1815-16 was actually no different than any other winter in New England. Even the arrival of spring seemed normal. April weather can be extremely unpredictable around these parts, but by May 1816, frost was still covering the ground, day after day.

On the fifth of June of that awful year, there was a heavy snowstorm that blanketed New England with up to 12 inches of snow. Crops were ruined, and newly shorn sheep froze to death. It warmed up soon after, and farmers were able to replant their crops, but another cold snap in the first week of July killed the corn crop and had farmers worrying about the threat of a general famine. Records indicate that this horrible cold weather lasted off and on right through August. Morning temperatures were consistently in the 30s and, even though some of the days warmed up and farmers tried optimistically to re-plant their crops, the killing frosts of September put an end to any hope for harvest.

The winter of 1816-17 turned the threat of starvation or near-starvation into a reality for many of our ancestors.   

What could have caused such unusual weather, even for New England? It is interesting to note that what the local farmers of the day could not have known was that this was not a New England phenomena. Although it was considered a local tragedy, in fact, the abnormal weather was widespread throughout the northern hemisphere. A weather scientist, William Humphreys, writing almost 100 years later, wrote that 1816 was just one of a series of famous cold years, beginning about 1812. The cold came about as a result of volcanic dust in the earth’s atmosphere, a theory put forth by Benjamin Franklin as early as 1784, when he made a connection between a constant “dry fog” in the atmosphere and the unusually cold winter of 1783-84.   

It seems that three major volcanic eruptions occurred between 1812 and 1817. The first occurred on St. Vincent Island in the Caribbean; the second occurred in the Philippines; and the third, and probably most powerful, was Tamboura, a 13,000-foot volcano in Indonesia. The fine volcanic dust rose so high into the stratosphere that it encircled the earth for years. The effect was to screen out the sunlight and cause the temperatures to drop, especially in Canada and New England.

Farmers of the period knew very little about scientific theories, so when this horrible summer was followed by a winter that was so severe that the mercury froze in thermometers, many must have believed that the change would be permanent.

So, suddenly this wet, cool weather doesn’t seem quite so bad. We haven’t had any major volcanic eruptions around the world lately, so it’s looking good that our weather will be just fine, especially by New England standards!

Karen Proctor is research director for the Historical Society. For details about these images, call 781-293-9083.

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