Quote:Among the hardest hit were the people of New England. All through July, heavy frosts and occasional ice storms were commonly seen. Most people took off their winter clothing, only to have to put it on again. So many young (and old) birds were frozen that but a few were around New England in the following 3 years.

Suicides were not uncommon: Drought, financial panic, and lack of food goaded many to desperation.

Quote:Nobody, apparently, had an immediate answer, but many had conjectured causes, including the positions of the planets, the distance between Earth and the Moon, and sunspots.


However, a more likely cause seems to have been the volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora, a 13,000-foot-high volcano on the island of Sumbawa, near Bali, in the East Indies. This happened in April of 1815 and was one of the greatest volcanic eruptions in history. Its toll: perhaps as many as 90,000 lives. 

The volcanic dust from this eruption was blown into the stratosphere in such quantities that it covered Earth like a great cosmic umbrella, dimming the Sun’s effectiveness during this whole cold year. Such an eruption would explain the appearance of the 1816 Sun as “in a cloud of smoke.” 

To which must be added the speculation surrounding a complete eclipse of the Sun on May 26, 1816, and of the Moon on June 9 and the “greater number of conjunctions of the planets than usual,” which would favor, wrote Robert B. Thomas, editor of this Almanac, “old maids and bachelors.” 

He, according to an apocryphal story that goes back to as early as 1846, had predicted for July 13, 1816, “Rain, Hail, and Snow”—all three of which, greatly to his amazement, did fall on this day.


–excerpted from The 1966 Old Farmer’s Almanac