Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-06-10
PECULIAR WEATHER.
An Entire Year of Winters Chilly
Blasts.
The Story of the Phenomenal Weather
That Followed a Cold Spring
in the Year 1916.

During cold spring, ike that which IS
lust now drawing 10 an end, people gener-
ally console themselves with the renecuoh
that the sun will eventually get inc VIC
tory, and that summer will certainly come
at last, though its coming may be delayed;
Uncertain as the weather IS the general
features of the seasons recur with regu-
larity which warrants the confluence mus
reported in the annual return oil seed
time and harvest; but there are instances
on record in which eTen the seasons seem
to have lost their characteristic features,
as if the ordinary laws OF meteorology had
been temporarily suspended. remarka'
bic case OF this kind, and one which the
long continued cold weather OF this spring
makes particularly interesting Just now,
is that of the year 1916 when mas oeen
called 1.-The year without summer. a
communication printed in The COngregd.
tionalist gives the following summary o;
the weather of this remarkable year:
January and February were mild; March
was cold; April began warm. but ended IN
snow and ice.
Ice Formed An Inch Thick In May,
and fields were planted over and over again
until it was too late TO replant. June was
the coolest ever known IN this latitude;
frost and ice were common. Almost every
green thing was killed; fruit nearly all de-
stroyed. Snow fell TO the d-pth OF ten
inches in Vermont seven in Maine, three
in the interior of New York, and also IN
Massachusetts. There were few warm
days. 1t was called dry season. But
little rain fell. The wind blew steadily
from the north, cold and fierce. Mothers
knit extra socks and mittens for the chill
dren in the spring, and wood piles
that usually disappeared during the
warm spell in front of the houses were
speedily built up again. Planting and
shivering were done tOgether,and the farm
ers who worked out their taxes on the
country roads wore Overcoats aud mittens.
In town in Vermont a flock of sheep be-
longing to farmer has been sent as usual
TO their pasture. ON the Eth of June a
heavy snow fell in New England. The cold
was intense. A farmer who had large
field of corn in Tewkshury built fires
| around it at night TO
Ward OF the Frost.
Many an evening he and his neighbors
took turns watching them. He was re-
| warded with the only crop OF corn IN the
neighborhoOd. Considerable damage was
| done in New Orleans in consequence OF
the rapid rise Of the Mississippi river.
Fears were entertained that the sun was
cooling OIL, and throughout New England
| all piCnics were striCkly prohibited. July
was accompanied with frost and ice. Indian
| corn was nearly all destroyed; some ia
yorably situated fields escaped. August
was more cheerIess ii possible, than the
summer months which preceded it. Ice
was formed half an inch in thickness.
| Indian corn was so frozen that the greater
| part was cut down and dried for fodder
| Almost every green thing was destroyed in
| this country and in Europe. On the 3Oth
snow fell at Barnet, forty miles from Lon
| don.
Very Little Corn Ripened
in New England and the Middle States.
Farmers supplied themselves from corn
| produced in 1915 for seed in the spring OF
| iSl7. 1t sold at from 81 to SIS per bushel.
September furnished about two weeks of
| the pleasautest weather of the season, but
| in the latter part OF the month ice formed
| an inch thick. October had more than its
| share OF cold weather. November was cold
| end snowy. December was comfortable,
| and the winter following was mild. Very
| little vegetation was matured in the East
ern and Middle States. The suns rays
seemed 70 be destitute OF heat during the
| summer: all nature was clad in sable hue,
| and men exhibited no little anxiety COa-
| Coming the future OF tniS lie. The average
! price of -four in the New York market was
SlS per barrel. The average price of wheat
| in England was - shillings per quarter.
Bread riots occurred throughout Great
Britain in ISL, in consequence of the high
price OF the staff OF life.