Meteorologists work hard to predict our weather. They use thermometers to record temperature, barometers to measure air pressure and anemometers to record wind speed. Doppler radar stations monitor the movement of weather fronts, and hygrometers measure relative humidity.

Using these devices along with an understanding of past atmospheric patterns, meteorologist have managed an impressive record in recent years. I would like to offer that they might do even better if they added volcanic activity to their existing toolbox.

In the summer of 1816 people in New London County were greatly perplexed. The weather was, well… just plain weird. It was unlike anything ever seen before. Lyme doctor Vine Utley entered the following observations in his medical journal.

“June 19, 1816...The chilling winds and repeated frosts under which the whole vegetable kingdom languishes, now extends throughout New England. The season is with us a full month later than in common years. The extraordinary cold state of the atmosphere during the week before last surpasses the recollection of the oldest person among us. The wind from north to northwest was very high for three days, accompanied by a winter chill that rendered a fireside very comfortable. A check is given to all vegetation and the frost has been so powerful as to destroy all corn and beans, vines, etc. We think the corn will recover again, but vines and beans will not.”

The corn crop did not survive the repeated bouts of cold weather that summer as Dr. Utley had hoped. As a result, farm animals could not be fed and had to be slaughtered. Shoreline communities turned to their fishing fleets to replace the meat they had lost. (1816, consequently, is sometimes referenced as “The Mackerel Year” or simply “Eighteen Sixteen and Near Froze to Death.”)

Memories of this unusual “Year Without a Summer” were hard to forget. Birds frozen in the trees, sheep reported frozen to death in their pastures and wells found iced up well into mid-summer. People pitched horseshoes on the Fourth of July in heavy coats and mittens, and the local population suffered from soaring food costs.

The color of the sky at sunset was said to perhaps be the most frightening thing of all. Despite the cold weather, the sky looked to many as if their world had been set on fire.

The year had begun innocently enough with a relatively mild winter and no indication of what lay ahead. January and February had been somewhat mild with very little snowfall. The next two months also remained dry, but both March and April saw temperatures suspiciously dipping lower than normal.

The month of June was seven degrees below normal on average, according to Connecticut records kept at Yale University in New Haven.

June 6, 1816, saw the first of three unseasonable cold waves hit our area. Farmers had begun planting in late April, and by June 5 temperatures had soared to 90 degrees, giving them hope for a good growing season.

The very next day, however, the thermometer plummeted into the 30s, bringing with it an accompanying frost. The cold temperatures lasted for almost a week, and in northern parts of New England 3 to 6 inches of snow covered the ground.

It did eventually warm up with temperatures once more climbing into the 90s, but a killer frost on four successive nights struck again in early July, wiping out the gains made from the late plantings.

Farmers were discouraged but would plant again only to be thwarted by yet another cold front hitting our area in late August. That one would wipe out what was left of the corn crop and severely damage numerous others.

“What was causing this?” people wondered. Why had Mother Nature suddenly abandoned her children? Would things ever return to “normal”? Many questions were asked at the time, but few answers were forthcoming. Was it “God’s wrath?”

Only a handful of people suspected that their unusual weather could possibly be tied to an event that had occurred one year earlier on the other side of the world. An Indonesian volcano, Mt. Tambora, had blown its top.

Few New Englanders had ever even heard of that eruption let alone understood that it was the worst volcanic eruption in the past 10,000 years. Even fewer suspected that its effects could possibly be felt from so far away.

This mammoth volcanic explosion lasted some two weeks and had devastated the surrounding countryside. Out of a population of 12,000 people on the Island of Sumbawa, only 26 survived. Tens of thousands more would perish on nearby islands from either disease or starvation in the coming months.

Total darkness enveloped the immediate area for a full three days. Ash up to three feet thick covered the ground. Newly formed islands of pumice floated free in the sea and did so for several years afterwards.

But, worst of all, 25 cubic miles of volcanic dust, ash and sulfur dioxide had been blasted up into the earth’s slow-moving stratosphere where it would dim the sun and have far-reaching and deadly global effects.

In the summer of 2022, people in New London County were greatly perplexed. I include myself in that group. The weather was, well… just plain weird. It was unlike anything most of us had ever seen before.

Almost no rain for long stretches of time and extreme heat. Day after day the same thing. A similar weather pattern was reported in Europe as well as throughout much of the United States. What was going on here?

I took a good hard look at my lawn. I had not mowed it in two months and yet it had scarcely grown at all during that time. The hot weather was definitely taking its toll on nature as well as on many of our human activities.

Electing to stay indoors rather than venture outside during one of those hot afternoons, I decided to browse the Internet. I was rewarded with a six-month-old news story about a volcanic explosion that had taken place earlier this year on Jan. 15.

I don’t remember it ever being important enough to have made a big splash in the news, but it instantly brought to mind the story of the Mt. Tambora eruption 206 year ago and the transforming effects it had on our local weather.

In the Polynesian Kingdom of Tonga (near New Zealand) a volcanic eruption of significant proportions had been reported. The explosion sent gasses and water vapor hurtling some 36 miles into the earth’s stratosphere, an all-time record.

This explosion and plume were recorded by satellite and can be viewed on YouTube. Not only is the explosion itself frightening, but its effects were said at the time to have global ramifications. Yet, there seems to have been very little follow-up on the story.

This unprecedented amount of gas and water vapor will most likely stay in the stratosphere for several years to come, scientists said, but unlike that Tambura explosion of old where ash particles shielded the earth from the sun (a sunscreen of sorts) which made temperatures colder, the water vapor in this Tongan explosion, they said, has the ability to do exactly the opposite…trap the earth’s heat and make things warmer.

Added to existing concerns about global warming this news was very disturbing. I took another long look at my poor lawn and wondered what it would be like to be a farmer under these conditions.

NASA scientists discussed the “perfect storm” necessary for this event to have taken place. From the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., recently it was stated that the huge volume of water injected into the stratosphere was only made possible by the depth of the volcano’s underwater magma base or “caldera.” It was the perfect depth, they said… 490 feet. Any shallower and there would not have been enough seawater superheated to reach the stratosphere, and if the caldera had been deeper, then the immense pressure in the ocean depths would have muted the eruption.

As a result, our weather systems are now facing something new or at least something that has never been recorded before.

It took a long time for the 1816 “Year Without a Summer” to be fully understood. Scientists did not actually confirm the link between volcanic explosions and changes in the earth’s weather until the 1960s and 1970s. Thankfully, we now know that Franklin’s lightning experiments, deforestation, modernization, and God’s wrath were not to blame for the three-degree temperature drop experienced that year.

Fast forward to 2022. We now have satellite pictures. We now have Doppler Radar. We now have scientific analysis. We also have the documented history and knowledge of how volcanic explosions can and have impacted world weather.

So why the seeming reluctance to see this Tongan volcanic event as a contributing factor to the unusual weather we are now experiencing? I have my suspicions.

Jim Littlefield is a retired history teacher in East Lyme who has written two local history books and two historical novels. His columns can also be found in the Post Road Review.