The year 1816 went down in history as the "year without a summer". Due to severe climate abnormalities the average global temperature decreased about 1.0 °F and had it's greatest effect on most of New England, Eastern Canada and Western Europe. In North America, there was a persistent "dry fog" throughout the spring and summer and a late May frost killed off most crops in the higher elevations of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont as well as upstate New York. Some cities in New England saw snow fall as late as June 6th. In Europe, heavy rains and cool temperatures throughout Britain and Ireland caused reduced or eliminated the harvest and famine was wide-spread. Germany saw food prices rise sharply and people took to the streets in riots, arson and looting. It was the worst famine in Europe in all of the 19th century. In Asia, the cold weather and flooding killed trees, rice crops and even water buffalo. Climatologists believe that the cold weather was caused by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies, the largest eruption in at least 1,300 years.
In New England, the temperatures dropped to as low as 40 degrees in July and August and the year was long remembered as "eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death". One New Englander, Reverend Thomas Robbins recorded his experiences that spring in his diary. In the first days of March, he remarked that the land was still "considerably frozen", too early to plant peas. Later in April, Robbins noted that the "weather is so cold that vegetation does not appear to advance at all.” On June 9th, Robbins observed that “the cold and wind still continue. The last three days have been extraordinary. It is said that there was snow at the northward last Thursday.” As late as August 22, Robbins noted that there was frost on the ground in the early morning. During the peak of the harvest in September, Reverend Robbins wrote in his diary. "I presume no person living has known so poor a crop of corn in New England, at this season, as now.”
In December of that year, President James Madison opened his Annual Address to Congress with a few words about the "year without a summer". It was brutal for much of the country, but the United States fared better than much of Europe because we were blessed with a variety of soils and climates, not to mention easy trade with our neighbors to the South who were much less impacted. Despite, cold weather, our country's harvest remained bountiful, surpassing the needs of the country in whole. In 1816, America was thankful to God for his plentiful blessings, despite it being "eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death".
"In reviewing the present state of our country, our attention cannot be withheld from the effect produced by peculiar seasons which have very generally impaired the annual gifts of the earth and threatened scarcity in particular districts. Such, however, is the variety of soils, of climates, and of products within our extensive limits that the aggregate resources for subsistence are more than sufficient for the aggregate wants. And as far as an economy of consumption, more than usual, may be necessary, our thankfulness is due to Providence for what is far more than a compensation, in the remarkable health which has distinguished the present year."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29458
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
http://connecticuthistory.org/eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death-1816-the-year-without-a-summer/
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/1816_summer.png
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