1816: A Year Without a Summer

Last week, I read a story on CNN's website, "Magma expanse under Yellowstone supervolcano more vast than thought."  Since my family had traveled to the national park a couple of years ago, it caught my eye. The article also mentioned an interesting bit of history.

While it states that an "eruption in the next few thousand years is extremely unlikely," it goes on to say that, "when it does blow, it probably will change the world." Apparently, an 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia had a wide-reaching impact. "Its dust may have blocked sunlight around the world, chilling the air and dropping the Earth's climate into a frigid phase that garnered the year 1816 the 'year without a summer,' some climatologists believe. It may have led to frosty crop failures in Europe and North America."

Sure enough, a search on Newspapers.com found many mentions of "a year without a summer," although the articles I read did not make a connection to the volcanic eruption. Here's one that appeared in the Pittsburgh Daily Post on January 3, 1916: