1816: The Year Without a Summer

Yes, it’s a little tongue-in-cheek to be writing about a year without a summer when we’ve had one of the hottest and driest summers on record in the UK. When I planned my blog calendar at the beginning of this year, I thought it would be another wet summer, as usual.

I expected to be writing this and empathising with the poor folk of 1816 who had to endure chilly temperatures over the summer months, but no! Instead, Brits this year are concerned about water shortages, potential crop failures, the threat of wildfires, sweltering temperatures, an inability to sleep and running up huge utility bills after setting up every available fan in the house.

The impact of climate change is nothing new. Let’s look at the summer that had a lasting impact across the globe.

A world suddenly cold

In 1816, people across the Northern Hemisphere looked up at a dimmed sun and wondered what had gone wrong. Temperatures plunged, crops failed and snow fell in June.

“The remarkable change of weather, from extreme heat to extreme cold, was as great here as the following paragraphs describes it to have been at the eastward: all kinds of vegetations has suffered, and some plants been entirely destroyed by the cold frost.”
A Connecticut newspaper, 12^th June 1816

The cause lay thousands of miles away. Mount Tambora, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, erupted in April 1815 with a force unmatched in recorded history. Its ash cloud wrapped around the globe, scattering sunlight and sabotaging weather systems. Modern scientists argue that the eruption caused the most devastating weather seen on the planet.

1816 became the year without a summer.

Tambora’s apocalyptic eruption

Tambora’s eruption was so violent that it reduced the mountain’s height by more than a mile. Contemporary accounts from the East Indies described darkness at noon and ash falling like snow.

Within weeks, volcanic debris reached the stratosphere and began its slow, global drift, leading to extreme weather, disease and worldwide famine.

The result was not a single freak storm but a chain reaction. Asian monsoons didn’t arrive, crops failed in Europe and North America experienced frigid temperatures. The climate system had been jolted off balance.

Global impact

The cold temperatures and endless rain in the Northern Hemisphere destroyed harvests and threatened famine.

“Farmers who had cut their hay eight days ago have lost the whole, it is all washed away; the grass which is yet standing is now rotting in the ground.”
The Times, 13^th July 1816. Reporting on the flooding of the Rhine in the Netherlands.

Across continents, 1816 became synonymous with hunger. In New England, farmers watched their corn freeze in the fields. In Switzerland, torrential rains caused landslides and destroyed harvests. Food prices soared, and riots erupted in European cities.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac later described the summer as snow in June, rivers icing in August and livestock dying from starvation. These were not isolated events but symptoms of a global climate shock.

Human migration surged. Thousands left Europe for North America, hoping for more stable conditions. Disease followed famine, compounding the misery.

Storms and struggles in Great Britain

At the time, no one understood what had caused the summer to be so cold. People blamed planetary positioning and sunspots. It took a long time to connect the weather to the eruption of Tambora.

Europe was still recovering from the trauma of the Napoleonic Wars, and resources were already exhausted. Plus, 1790-1830 is described as a Little Ice Age because of low solar activity known as the Dalton Minimum, so winters were also harsh.

Britain experienced one of the most chaotic weather years in its history. Archival records show relentless rain, failed wheat crops and widespread hardship.

Prices rose sharply. Bread became scarce. Rural communities suffered as hay crops rotted and livestock weakened. Diaries from the period describe flooded fields, darkened skies and the eerie sense that the seasons themselves had broken.

Regency-era commentators wrote of “a coldness that seemed to penetrate the bones,” and newspapers reported storms that destroyed bridges and washed away entire villages. The social strain was palpable. Poor relief systems buckled, and unrest simmered in industrial towns already stressed by post-Napoleonic unemployment.

Not all bad

While Britain struggled, a group of young writers gathered at Lake Geneva. They had hoped for a summer of boating and alpine walks. Instead, storms trapped them indoors, and the infamous ghost story contest proposed by Lord Byron led to the creation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre by John Polidori.

So, while devastating, the summer of 1816 also gave us some of the most enduring fantastical creatures in fiction.

Weather woes

The volcanic eruption in Indonesia reshaped weather patterns from China to Canada and altered economies. It’s estimated that over 3 years, the resulting food shortages led to 92,000 deaths.

I, and my fellow Brits, love complaining about the weather, be it hot and dry or cold and wet, but during 1816 and the following years, everyone had more reason to moan and worry about the weather.