1816 - The Year Without a Summer

Summer; such a joyous season, a time when flowers bloom, crops flourish, and families vacation. A time that we can all lounge about and bask in the sun's warm glow. But what if there was no summer? What if the frigid temperatures of winter continued into the known summer months of June and July?

The year 1816 was known as The Year without a Summer. Every part of the world was facing a climate change that they had never seen before. Climate change is the term that is commonly used; however in reality; it was a Volcanic Winter. A volcanic winter is commonly defined as the decrease in temperature that is caused by volcanic ash and droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the sun following a volcanic eruption. Every time a volcano blows it's top there is some sort of effect on the climate, but to throw nearly the entire planet's northern hemisphere into a Volcanic Winter, means that the eruption was more cataclysmic then just a small volcanic burp.

In the case of 1816, Mount Tambora was the cause. Tambora began rumbling in 1812 and no one knew the power or devastation that was just around the corner when she blew in 1815. The thunderous sounds of the blast were heard up to 1,620 miles away from where Tambora sat on the Sumbawa Island in Indonesia. The entire volcano was quickly turned into a mountain covered in lava. Ash fell up to 800 miles away and hot rock and lava flows spread up to 13 miles.

The hot rock and lava flows killed thousands, but the main killer was the sulfur. Mount Tambora released sulfur into the Earth's atmosphere that blocked the sunlight. The sulfur spread into Britain in the autumn of 1815 causing red wavelengths of sunlight to pain the skies. Yes, the eruption was in April of 1815, but the full harsh reality of the effects didn't kick in until 1816.

France, home of the Champagne district of Verdun, harvests grapes that normally ripen in the summer. But in 1816 the sun did not shine on the grapes, the grapes froze in the cold weather. Hungary experienced a blizzard in January of 1816 like none ever seen before. Brown and yellow snow it Hungary hard. Many described the mixture of volcanic dust and snow as flesh colored snow.