A year without summer?
Published Thursday July 9th, 2009
I awoke the other day to discover five centimetres of snow covering my tropical lilies and Texas dahlias, and my wife making angels in the white stuff shouting: "Come on in, the water is warm!"
Suddenly, I realized I was still asleep and still in the grip of a vivid dream. When I did finally join the world of the walking wounded, I was relieved to discover that the temperature outside hovered at a balmy 10 degrees. No need for the snow shovels. Not yet. Not on July 6, at any rate.
I don't own a cottage. I don't retreat to the beach like all the other lemmings that throw themselves over a cliff in search of mindless, sun-worshipping death by melanoma. But if I did, I'd be mightily annoyed with Environment Canada's David Phillips (the nation's Dr. Phil of weather), and our very own Charles Perry (the province's premier purveyor of all things meteorological). After all, guys, wasn't this supposed to be an above-average season? Isn't this what you promised?
In fact, though, this is not the coldest start to summer in New Brunswick's history. Back in the 1960s, Moncton's daytime high in mid-July reached only 6.7 degrees. In the early 1970s, snow actually fell in quantity on both southeastern New Brunswick and northwestern Nova Scotia in late August.
And that's nothing compared with the infamous, global "Year Without a Summer" of 1816.
As a Wikipedia entry (which I have independently verified) explains: "The Year Without a Summer (also known as the Poverty Year, Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death, and the Year There Was No Summer) was (when) severe climate abnormalities destroyed crops in Northern Europe, the American Northeast and eastern Canada.
"Most consider the climate anomaly to have been caused by a combination of a historic low in solar activity and a volcanic winter event -- the latter caused by a succession of major eruptions capped off by the Mount Tambora eruption of 1815, the largest known eruption in over 1,600 years.
"In May 1816, frost killed off most of the crops that had been planted, and in June two large snow storms in eastern Canada and New England resulted in many human deaths. Nearly a foot (30 cm) of snow was observed in Quebec City in early June, with consequent additional loss of crops. The result was regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality -- in short, famine.
"In July and August, lake and river ice were observed as far south as Pennsylvania. Rapid, 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. Even though farmers south of New England did succeed in bringing some crops to maturity, maize and other grain prices rose dramatically.
"The crop failures of the 'Year without Summer' forced the family of Joseph Smith to move from Sharon, Vermont to Palmyra, New York, precipitating a series of events culminating in the publication of the Book of Mormon and the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"In July 1816 'incessant rainfall' during that 'wet, ungenial summer' forced Mary Shelley, John William Polidori and their friends to stay indoors for much of their Swiss holiday. They decided to have a contest, seeing who could write the scariest story, leading Shelley to write Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus and Polidori to write The Vampyre. The Year without a Summer also inspired Lord Byron to write his 1816 poem, Darkness."
In other words, folks, it could be worse.
The long-range forecast calls for sunny skies and warming temperatures. But if this doesn't transpire, maybe we should retreat indoors to write plays, sonatas, novels and everything Internet-unrelated.
Is a year without summer really such a disaster?
Okay! I don't believe me either.
Dr. Phil, Chuck? Bring on the heat. Could you? Would you? Please?
n Alec Bruce is a Moncton-based journalist. His column appears in this space every Tuesday and Thursday. He can be reached via www.thebrucereport.com
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