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Subject: [MDCAROLI] In regard to the killer years we think we have it rough!
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:51:04 EST

Hi list,

I received the following from another mailing list & never dreamed
we lost a summer -- food for thought!

Just think what your ancestors went through, it sure is part of our
genealogy.

IT COULDN'T HAPPEN BUT IT DID IN 1816 THE KILLER YEAR

When we think of survival, usually our thoughts go to facing a
terrorist attack with a loaded gun or bomb, or perhaps tangling with
a big truck on the interstate, or facing some other life threatening
moment where there is little hope of escape.

Old man weather seldom figures in our survival picture. Even in
weather extremes, man would survive, wouldn't he? Usually, but
wait a moment.

The summer of 1816 was nonexistent. It was a killer year over much
of the US. This is not legend but statistical facts. Sunshine Magazine
much quoted international journal gave this account of the phenomenon:
"January was so mild that people allowed their fires to go out. February
was also mild, and so was March. April came in warm, but as the days
lengthened, the air became colder, and by May 1, temperatures were
like those of the winter. Young birds were frozen stiff in their nests,
and ice formed on the ponds and the rivers of the Midwest. Corn was
killed and fields were planted again, with no germination. By the end
of May all vegetation had been killed by the cold. June was the coldest
month ever experienced in this latitude. All of the fruit was destroyed,
snow lay ten inches thick in Vermont on July 4, 1816, and all of New
England was ice covered. August proved to be the worst month of all.
There was great starvation among the people."

That summation of the year of 1816 seems incredible, but there
are other statistical facts.

R A. Weinel, a Missouri historian, states facts that a repetition of
the above and he makes an addition:

"In Virginia, Thomas Jefferson applied for an emergency loan to tide
him over his crop failures. Europe, too, was hard hit by the unseasonable
cold and in 1816 was also known in England as the year without a
summer. Henry & Elizabeth Stommel argue in Volcano Weather, their
book about the phenomenon, that a typhus epidemic had killed 65,000
people in the British Isles in 1816 was related to this cold-induced
famine."

The cause of this global misery, scientists now believe, was the
eruption of Mount Tambora, a Volcano in the Dutch Indies, In what
was probably one of the most powerful volcanic outbursts in ten
thousand years, Tambora spewed 25 cubic miles of debris into the
Upper Atmosphere. The heavier particles fell in the Pacific Ocean,
forming a slush of pumice two feet thick. The lighter debris remained
aloft for months and blanketed the shies over much of the Northern
Hemisphere. How accurate are these records? Today's meteorologists
think they are quite factual, for many writers reported on the same
subject, and most of them describe the summer of 1816 almost word
for word.

This is a moral to all and a reminder that we survive most of us, not
through human strength alone.

The above was written in 1950 by Grover Brinkman

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