The Year Without a Summer Was a Bizarre Weather Disaster in 1816
A Volcanic Eruption Led to Crop Failures on Two Continents
Updated
November 27, 2014.
The weather in 1816 was unprecedented. Spring arrived but then everything seemed to turn backward, as cold temperatures returned. The sky seemed permanently overcast. The lack of sunlight became so severe that farmers lost their crops and food shortages were reported in Ireland, France, England, and the United States.
In Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, retired from the presidency and farming at Monticello, sustained crop failures that sent him further into debt. In Europe, the gloomy weather helped inspire the writing of a classic horror tale, Frankenstein.
It would be more than a century before anyone understood the reason for the peculiar weather disaster: the eruption of an enormous volcano on a remote island in the Indian Ocean a year earlier had thrown enormous amounts of volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere.
The dust from Mount Tambora, which had erupted in early April 1815, had shrouded the globe. And with sunlight blocked, 1816 did not have a normal summer.
Reports of Weather Problems Appeared in Newspapers
Mentions of odd weather began appearing in American newspapers in early June, such as the following dispatch from Trenton, New Jersey which appeared in the Boston Independent Chronicle on June 17, 1816:On the night of 6th instant, after a cold day, Jack Frost paid another visit to this region of the country, and nipped the beans, cucumbers, and other tender plants. This surely is cold weather for summer.
On the 5th we had quite warm weather, and in the afternoon copious showers attended with lightning and thunder -- then followed high cold winds from the northwest, and back back again the above mentioned unwelcome visitor. On the 6th, 7th, and 8th June, fires were quite agreeable company in our habitations.As the summer went on and the cold persisted, crops failed. What's important to note is that while 1816 wasn't the coldest year on record, the prolonged cold coincided with the growing season. And that led to food shortages in Europe and in some communities in the United States.
Historians have noted that the westward migration in America accelerated following the very cold summer of 1816.
It is believed that some farmers in New England,
having struggled through a horrible growing season, made up their minds
to venture to western territories.
The Bad Weather Inspired a Classic Story of Horror
In Ireland the summer of 1816 was much rainier than normal, and the potato crop failed. In other European countries wheat crops were dismal, leading to bread shortages.In Switzerland, the damp and dismal summer of 1816 led to the creation of a significant literary work. A group of writers, including Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and his future wife Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, challenged each other to write dark tales inspired by the gloomy and chilly weather.
During the miserable weather Mary Shelley wrote her classic novel Frankenstein.
Reports Looked Back at the Bizarre Weather of 1816
By the end of summer, it was apparent that something very strange had occurred. The Albany Advertiser, a newspaper in New York State, published a story on October 6, 1816 which related the peculiar season:The weather during the past summer has been generally considered as very uncommon, not only in this country, but, as it would seem from newspaper accounts, in Europe also. Here it has been dry, and cold. We do not recollect the time when the drought has been so extensive, and general, not when there has been so cold a summer. There have been hard frosts in every summer month, a fact that we have never known before. It has also been cold and dry in some parts of Europe, and very wet in other places in that quarter of the world.The Albany Advertiser went on to propose some theories about why the weather was so bizarre. The mention of sunspots is interesting, as sunspots had been seen by astronomers, and some people, to this day, wonder about what, if any effect, that may have had on the weird weather.
What's also fascinating is that the newspaper article from 1816 proposes that such events be studied so people can learn what is going on:
Many persons suppose that the seasons have not thoroughly recovered from the shock they experienced at the time of the total eclipse of the sun. Others seem disposed to charge the peculiarities of the season, the present year, upon the spots on the sun. If the dryness of the season has in any measure depended on the latter cause, it has not operated uniformly in different places -- the spots have been visible in Europe, as well as here, and yet in some parts of Europe, as we have already remarked, they have been drenched with rain.
Without undertaking to discuss, much less to decide, such a learned subject as this, we should be glad if proper pains were taken to ascertain, by regular journals of the weather from year to year, the state of the seaons in this country and Europe, as well as the general state of health in both quarters of the globe. We think the facts might be collected, and the comparison made, without much difficulty; and when once made, that it would be of great advantage to medical men, and medical science.The Year Without a Summer would be long remembered. Newspapers in Connecticut decades later reported that old farmers in the state referred to 1816 as "eighteen hundred and starve to death."
As it happens, the Year Without a Summer would be studied well into the 20th century, and a fairly clear understanding would emerge.
The Eruption of Mount Tambora
When the volcano at Mount Tambora erupted it was a massive and terrifying event which killed tens of thousands of people. It was actually a larger volcanic eruption than the eruption at Krakatoa decades later.The Krakatoa disaster has always overshadowed Mount Tambora for a simple reason: the news of Krakatoa traveled quickly by telegraph, and appeared in newspapers quickly. By comparison, people in Europe and North America only heard about Mount Tambora months later. And the event did not hold much meaning for them.
It was not until well into the 20th century that scientists began to link the two events, the eruption of Mount Tambora and the Year Without a Summer. There have been scientists who dispute or discount the relationship between the volcano and the crop failures on the other side of the world the following year, but most scientific thought finds the link credible.
Mount Tambora Was the Largest Volcanic Eruption of 19th Century
Cataclysm Contributed to 1816 Being "The Year Without a Summer"
Sir Thomas Raffles, who collected accounts of the Mount Tambora disaster.
Getty Images
Updated
December 04, 2014.
The tremendous eruption of Mount Tambora in April 1815 was the most powerful volcanic eruption of the 19th century.The eruption and the tsunamis it triggered killed tens of thousands of people. And the magnitude of the explosion is difficult to fathom.
It has been estimated that Mount Tambora stood approximately 12,000 feet tall before the 1815 eruption, before the top one-third of the mountain was completely obliterated.
Adding to the disaster's massive scale, the huge amount of dust blasted into the upper atmosphere by the Tambora eruption contributed to a bizarre and highly destructive weather event the following year. And 1816 became known as The Year Without a Summer.
The disaster on the remote island of Sumbawa in the Indian Ocean has been overshadowed by the eruption of the volcano at Krakatoa decades later, partly because the news of Krakatoa traveled quickly via telegraph.
Accounts of the Tambora eruption were considerably more rare, yet some vivid ones do exist. An administrator of the East India Company, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, who was serving as governor of Java at the time, published a striking account of the disaster based on written reports he had collected from English traders and military personnel.
Beginnings of the Mount Tambora Disaster
The island of Sumbawa, home to Mount Tambora, is located in present day Indonesia. When the island was first discovered by Europeans the mountain was thought to be an extinct volcano.However, about three years before the 1815 eruption the mountain seemed to come to life. Rumblings were felt. And a dark smoky cloud appeared atop the summit.
On April 5, 1815, the volcano began to erupt.
British traders and explorers in that part of the
world heard the sound and at first thought it to be the firing of
cannon. There was a fear that a battle of at sea was being fought
nearby.
The Massive Eruption of Mount Tambora
On the evening of April 10, 1815, the eruptions intensified. And a massive major eruption began to blow the volcano apart. Viewed from a settlement about 15 miles to the east, it seemed that three columns of flames shot into the sky.According to a witness on an island about 10 miles to the south, the entire mountain appeared to turn into "liquid fire." Stones of pumice more than six inches in diameter began to rain down on neighboring islands.
Violent winds propelled by the eruptions struck settlements like hurricanes, and some reports claimed that the wind and sound triggered small earthquakes. And tsunamis emanating from the island of Tambora destroyed settlements on other islands, killing tens of thousands of people.
Investigations by modern day archaeologists have determined that an island culture on the island of Sumbawa was completely wiped out by the Mount Tambora eruption.
Written Reports of Mount Tambora's Eruption
As the eruption of Mount Tambora occurred before communication by telegraph, accounts of the cataclysm were slow to reach Europe and North America.The British governor of Java, Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, who was learning an enormous amount about the native inhabitants of the local islands while writing his 1817 book History of Java, collected accounts of the eruption.
Raffles began his account of the Mount Tambora eruption by noting the confusion about the source of the initial sounds:
The first explosions were heard on this Island in the evening of the 5th of April, they were noticed in every quarter, and continued at intervals until the following day. The noise was in the first instance almost universally attributed to distant cannon; so much so, that a detachment of troops were marched from Djocjocarta [a nearby province] in the expectation that a neighboring post was attacked. And along the coast boats were in two instances dispatched in quest of a supposed ship in distress.After the initial explosion was heard, Raffles said it was supposed that the eruption was no greater than other volcanic eruptions in that region. But he noted that on the evening of April 10th extremely loud explosions were heard and large amounts of dust began to fall from the sky.
Other employees of the East India Company in the region were directed by Raffles to submit reports about the aftermath of the eruption. The accounts are chilling. One letter submitted to Raffles describes how, on the morning of April 12, 1815, no sunlight was visible at 9 a.m. on a nearby island. The sun had been entirely obscured by volcanic dust in the atmosphere.
A letter from an Englishman on the island of Sumanap described how, on the afternoon of April 11, 1815, "by four o'clock it was necessary to light candles." It remained dark until the next afternoon.
About two weeks after the eruption, a British officer sent to deliver rice to the island of Sumbawa made an inspection of the island. He reported seeing numerous corpses, and widespread destruction. Local inhabitants were becoming ill and many had already died of hunger.
A local ruler, the Rajah of Saugar, gave his account of the cataclysm to the British officer, Lieutenant Owen Phillips. He described three columns of flames arising from the mountain when it erupted on April 10, 1815.
Apparently describing the lava flow, the Rajah said the mountain started to appear "like a body of liquid fire, extending itself in every direction."
The Rajah also described the effect of the wind unleashed by the eruption:
Between nine and ten p.m. ashes began to fall, and soon after a violent whirlwind ensued, which blew down nearly every house in the village of Saugar, carrying the tops and light parts along with it.
In the part of Saugar adjoining [Mount Tambora] its effects were much more violent, tearing up by the roots the largest trees and carrying them into the air together with men, houses, cattle, and whatever else came within its influence. This will account for the immense number of floating trees seen at sea.
The sea rose nearly twelve feet higher than it had ever been known to be before, and completely spoiled the only small spots of rice lands in Saugar, sweeping away houses and every thing within its reach.
Worldwide Effects of the Mount Tambora Eruption
Though it would not be apparent for more than a century, the eruption of Mount Tambora contributed to one of the worst weather-related disasters of the 19th century. The following year, 1816, became known as The Year Without a Summer.The dust particles blasted into the upper atmosphere from Mount Tambora were carried by air currents and spread across the world. By the fall of 1815 eerily colored sunsets were being observed in London, England. And the following year the weather patterns in Europe and North America changed drastically.
While the winter of 1815-1816 was fairly ordinary, the spring of 1816 turned odd. Temperatures did not rise as expected, and very cold temperatures persisted in some places well into the summer months.
Widespread crop failures caused hunger and even famine in some places. And thus the eruption of Mount Tambora may have caused widespread casualties on the opposite side of the world.
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