The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer (also the Poverty Year and Eighteen Hundred and Froze To Death) because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.72–1.26 °F).
Impact: Caused a volcanic winter in the summer that dropped temperatures to 33.8 degrees in some parts of the US.
Volcano: Mount Tambora
Start date: Eruption occurred on 10 April 1815
Mount Tambora, or Tomboro, is an active stratovolcano in the northern part of Sumbawa, one of the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia. It eruption was felt worldwide.
The last time this occurred was in 1465. Scientists aren’t sure which volcano erupted then. This one helped created a year of darkness.
The summer of 1816 was not like any summer people could remember. Snow fell in New England. Gloomy, cold rains fell throughout Europe. It was cold and stormy and dark – not at all like typical summer weather. Crops failed causing famine.
Red snow fell in Italy.
Rome froze.
Jerusalem froze over.
It snowed in many parts of Northern Africa and India.
Ironically, crops failed in many places except the Southern United States. The global food shortages made the southern planters very wealthy and helped ushered in what became known as “The Era of Good Feelings” 1815 – 1825.
Apparently something happened prior to Mount Tambora because there was a low solar activity between 1810-1823. The temperatures were below normal.
unholypursuit
Fascinating bit of history!!
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I, too, was astonished to discover that it actually snowed in the summertime in normally mild to hot places.
I found another one, larger than Mount Tambora. It was so powerful it turned the sun blue. It perhaps gave us some of the imagery we’ve always imagined, and associated the Dark Ages. It was actually dark in the daytime for a long time. I imagined that was scary for very superstitious people. I have seen drawings and paintings of the Dark Ages where everything seemed dark but I thought it was merely the artist’s visual effects.
People wasn’t keeping accurate records back then, all I could find is the mega one occurred in 1465. No one seemed to know where it happened.
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Never mind superstitious people back then! If the sun turned blue today, I am pretty sure that the world would go nuts today! 😉
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I agree! I know I was would a little unnerved if I saw the sun turned blue.
Below is the link to last known time it occurred in 1883.
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=MG19190726.2.47&e=——-en–20–1–txt-txIN——–1
Blue Sun Phenomenon Has Been Recorded Only Once: In August. 1883, in Java
Wit, Humor and Miscellany Items
The e-ptvsslon “once In a blue moon.” meaning that occurrences are so widely separated h.v time as to almost never recur, is not merely a figure of speech. It lias a basis of astronomical fact. The phenomenon ha* been twice observed in both Italy and Austria and once iti Kngland. There Is no available record of it having been noticed lu America. A blue sun has been recorded only once. That was in August. 1888, in Java. A day or two before there was a very violent eruption of a large volcano about a hundred miles from Batavla. The eruption ended with an explosion in which a range of mountains was destroyed, a vast cavity being left in its place, more than a thousand feet deep at one point. Bllltons of tons of rock, mud and dust were thrown high In the air and the sun was obscured over a large area. At Batavls the darkness became so deep that street lamps had to be lighted In the middle of the forenoon. That condition prevailed until toward sunset. Then the volcaulc cloud began to clear away, leaving the sun visible. Instead, however, of It being red. as It usually Is when viewed through a smoke cloud, it appeared as a magnificent deep-blue disk, remaining that color until It sank below the horizon. The phenomenon was seen by everyone within 80 to 40 degrees of the equator.
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Fascinating! Thank you!
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You are welcome. 🙂
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