Year with no Summer

Global Freezing by Peter Dannenberg

In April 1815, a volcano, Mount Tambora, blew up. It was on an island, Sumbawa, in southern Indonesia. Buildings collapsed. Flaming ash fell dozens of miles away, starting raging fires. Up to 15,000 people died in minutes. It was the deadliest natural disaster in 10,000 years.

More than 13,000 feet high, Tambora blasted its summit, 3,640 feet high, by almost a mile wide, into gases, dust, tiny droplets of sulfuric acid and rocks that shot up 25 miles. Lower down ash fell with rain. Up high, the stratosphere is too dry for clouds. Fine particles stayed aloft, pushed around the world by wind. Gravity slowly settled floating debris for 17 months.

By winter of 1815–16, a worldwide veil of ash reflected sunlight, cooling temperatures, and wreaking havoc. Extreme cold afflicted New England, Europe, China and other places. Globally, another 65,000 people died from disease or starvation. Vermonters nicknamed 1816 Year without a Summer, Poverty Year, Year of Famine or 1800 and Froze to Death.

Rain stopped in Vermont at the end of April; it would not rain again for 120 days. The climate was harsh in the early 1800s. There were cold winters, short growing seasons and dry weather. A years-long drought continued into 1817. Forest fires added to gloomy skies.

In Vermont, June 5 was hot, close to 90 degrees. Then on June 6 and 7, a large snowstorm hit northern New York and New England. Several places had 6 inches or more of snow. On June 9, standing water froze overnight. Shorn sheep and lambs perished with the cold. Birds flew into houses for shelter; great numbers lay dead in the fields.

The temperature continued its roller coaster ride. Early August was sunny and warm. Farmers replanted, hoping the growing season would last, but on Aug. 13, corn froze north of Concord, New Hampshire. On Aug. 20, it snowed again in Vermont.

As far south as Connecticut, frosts every month killed crops replanted during brief warm spells. Some wheat, rye and potatoes survived, but crop yields fell up to 90 percent. There was too little hay for cattle; farmers slaughtered livestock.

Big game grew scarce. Some Vermonters ate pigeons, porcupines, hedgehogs, wild turnips and boiled nettles. Corn never ripened; people ate the little grain that grew, leaving no seed for the next year. Famine loomed; food prices soared six to eight times. Vermonters traded maple syrup along the seacoast for mackerel. Mackerel Year became another nickname for 1816.

On June 7, Joseph Walker, eighty-eight years old, got lost in the woods at Peacham. He was out all night in the snow. Frostbite took one of his great toes.

On the morning of June 8, there were snowdrifts on hills around Montpelier. In the mountains, snow was more than a foot deep. A letter from Vermont said, "This part of the country, I assure you, presents a most dreary aspect, great coats and mittens are almost as generally worn as in January, and fire is indispensable."

On June 11, Benjamin Harwood, a Bennington farmer, wrote in his diary that it rained all night. Then it snowed from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. “The heads of all the mountains on every side were crowned with snow. The most gloomy and extraordinary weather ever seen.”

On July 17, 1816, The Reporter of Brattleborough, Vermont wrote, “It is believed that the memory of no man living can furnish a parallel to this present season. From every part of the United States, north of the Potomac, as well as from Canada, we have accounts of the remarkable coldness of the weather, and of vegetation retarded or destroyed by untimely frosts. In Montreal, on the 6th, 8th, and 9th of June were falls of snow, and from the 6th to the 10th, it froze every night. Birds, which were never before found except in remote forests, were then to be met with in every part of the city, and among the [flocks], and many of them benumbed with cold, dropped dead in the streets.

In Cabot, snow was 18 inches deep on June 8. From the northern and western parts of New York, and from Maine, we have received accounts of summer snows, and winter lingering in the lap of June; and the most gloomy apprehensions of distressing scarcity are entertained by those who witnessed the phenomena.”

The sky looked reddish; sunlight was weak. People saw sunspots with the naked eye. Winds and rain did not clear the air. Temperatures soared, and then fell to freezing in hours.

Many feared Vermont would endure poverty years again. About 15,000 Vermonters fled west in the 1820s.

Few Vermonters heard of the volcano at the time. On Christmas Eve, 2016, the Bethel United Church unveiled a Vermont historic marker commemorating 1800 and Froze to Death. The people of Bethel built the church in 1816, while enduring the hunger year. No one knew why the weather was so bad, but many prayed for divine intervention. Two centuries later, we know dormant super volcanoes are still sleeping threats around the world.