The Wintery Summer of 1816 on This Day in History

This Day in History: There was 10 inches of snowfall in New England on this day in 1816 in what came to be called the "year without a summer." At the Church Family of Shakers near New Lebanon, New York, Nicholas Bennet wrote in May 1816, "all was froze" and the hills were "barren like winter". Temperatures went below freezing almost every day in May. The ground froze on June 9. On June 12, the Shakers had to replant crops destroyed by the cold. On July 7, it was so cold, everything had stopped growing. The Berkshire Hills had frost again on August 23, as did much of the upper northeast.

In July and August, lakes and rivers froze over ice as far south as Pennsylvania with frost reported as far south as Virginia in late August. Dramatic temperature swings were common, with temperatures sometimes reverting from normal or above-normal summer temperatures as high as 95 °F (35 °C) to near-freezing within hours.

Ex-president Thomas Jefferson also experienced crop failure which sent him further into debt.

"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." Source

It is believed that this phenomenon was caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East Indies (which is now Indonesia).

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