The Rathdrum tribune. (Rathdrum, Idaho) 1903-1963, 1916-09-29
A WEATHER MYTH
The Idea That the Old Fashioned
Winter Was a Fury.
FAMOUS FR0STS WERE RARE.
Records Show That Remarkable Snow
storms and Long Seasons of Hard
Freezing Were Not All the Rule.
Testimony of Pepys and Evelyn.

storms and Long Seasons of Hard
Freezing Were Not All the Rule.
Testimony of Pepys and Evelyn.
Perhaps the greatest Of weather
myths is the legend of the "old fash
Toned winter"-that prolonged season
of ice and snow which is supposed to
have held the land in it's grip every
year. So firmly has this idea been held
for many years that 1t came as n shock
when meteorologlsts first began to
dclve into the records of the past and
prove its inaccuracy.
There can be 10 doubt that Charles
Dickens. Washington Irving, artists
who depicted winter scenes, and, in
later era. the Christmas number and
the Christmas card are mainly respon-
sible for the belief that up to about
half century ago the British winters
were always extremely severe.
Such records as we possess prove the
fallaey of the idea. No records of the
weather were kept up to about fifty
or sixty years ago, so that we have to
rely on the statements of private dia-
ries and old family records, and there
fore 1t takes lot of research to obtain
any data at all.
In olden times no one troubled to
make note of average weather, for
writing was an art possessed only by
few, and writing materials were hard
to obtain; hence 1t is that mention Is
made only of something unusual, some
abnormally mild winter or heavy fall
of snow or prolonged frosts.
And when all is said there are COM
paratively few of the latter, although
they were likely to be recorded, while
the mllder ones would be passed over.
a few years ago there were published
in France some notes concerning very
mild winters in early times. Gregory
of Tours tells us that 594 was excep-
tlonally mild, as were the winters of
80S, 834, S44 and 1907, when, influenza
was rife.
Another mild season occurred In
1929, when the birds are said to have
Matched their young by February
while the weather journal of the Rev.
William Merle, which is in the Bod
leian library at Oxford, shows us that
during the middle of the fourteenth
century the weather was very much as
1t Is now and that mid winters were
not uncommon.
There were one or two mild winters
during the next hundred years, the
most notable one being that of 1895.
when barley and corn were in the ear
at the end of January. Writings of the.
sixteenth century have similar testi.-
mony to offer, the one or two excep-.
lions only going to prove the rule be-.
cause they aroused so much comment.
Pepys and Evelyn come to our aid
from the middle to the end of the sew
enteenth century and prove conclusive
~ that the old fashioned winter is
myth. The diaries of these famous.
writers have been analysed, and as a.
result it is found that falls of snow
are mentioned only thirteen times over
nearly sixty years, while exceptionally
heavy storms are referred to only three.
times
In the same period there were but.
six prolonged frosts. and apparently.
only the famous one of 1854 and am
either few years later were so severe
us the modern ones of 1901 and 1897.
in January. 1861, Pepys comments on
the mild winter, and in December of
the following year he notes that he
awoke to find the roofs covered with