The exceptionally cold spring of 1837

[Weather-history]

1837 will always be remembered for that exceptionally cold spring

Jan: 2.7 (+0.3)

Feb: 4.7 (+0.7)

Mar: 2.3 (-3.3)

Apr: 4.7 (-3.2)

May: 9.9 (-1.5)

Jun: 15.5 (+1.3)

Jul: 16.9 (+1.1)

Aug: 15.7 (+0.3)

Sep: 12.5 (-0.7)

Oct: 10.5 (+0.7)

Nov: 5.2 (-0.7)

Dec: 5.3 (+1.7)

March is the 9th coldest on record

April joint coldest with 1701

March and April 1837 are the coldest combination ever recorded with a CET average of 3.5

Spring 1837 is the coldest ever recorded with a CET of just 5.6 (2.6 below the 1801-30 average)

The first half of spring (1st March-15th April) just had a CET average of 2.5C.

The CET average for 16th March-15th April is just 2.2C

The CET of the coldest spring of the 20th century (1962) is 6.9 (1.6C below the 1931-60 average)

The following summer was 10.4C warmer than the spring.

The impact of this spring on the flora and fauna as well as the agricultural sector must have been devastating.

Spring CET trackometer, March first value: April second value: May third value

1. 0.7 3.2 12.1

2. 1.4 3.8 12.1

3. 1.8 3.6 12.2

4. 2.2 3.6 11.5

5. 2.6 3.5 10.9

6. 2.7 3.5 10.6

7. 2.7 3.5 10.5

8. 2.8 3.3 10.3

9. 3.1 3.1 9.8

10. 3.3 2.9 9.4

11. 3.3 2.7 9.3

12. 3.2 2.7 9.2

13. 3.2 2.7 9.2

14. 3.2 2.7 9.3

15. 3.2 2.8 9.3

16. 3.1 2.8 9.3

17. 3.1 2.9 9.6

18. 3.0 3.0 9.6

19. 2.9 3.2 9.4

20. 2.7 3.3 9.3

21. 2.6 3.3 9.2

22. 2.4 3.5 9.1

23. 2.3 3.6 9.0

24. 2.2 3.7 9.0

25. 2.2 3.9 9.1

26. 2.2 4.1 9.2

27. 2.1 4.2 9.3

28. 2.2 4.4 9.5

29. 2.3 4.5 9.7

30. 2.3 4.7 9.8

31. 2.3 9.9

A crude graph of the CET values from January 1st to May 31st 1837. The horizontal blue line is the 1801-30 monthly averages. You can see how below the average March and April were. Especially that mid March-mid April period which was a staggering 2.2C (5.1C below the 1971-00 average for that period). That was colder than December 1995. Remarkable!

The only months colder than that mid March to mid April period in the last 25 years are February 1991, January 2010 and December 2010.

Edited March 28, 2013 by Weather-history

[johnholmes]

my that is some cold, comparing it to winter months as well. Heaven only knows what effects that must have had on farming. The only bright spot was that the summer was above average!

[Terminal Moraine]

A remarkable jump in temperature between April 30th and May 1st after consistent cold throughout April.

I wonder how snowy that spring was?

[Roger J Smith]

I have some daily weather records from Providence Rhode Island from the 1830s. This may help visualize the circulation patterns further. I will just cover Jan to May 1837 in some detail and describe the summer of 1837 in general terms there. This was a complete weather record with some notes on aurorae (the years 1836 to 1839 were very active solar years after the end of the Dalton minimum). I also have just the temperatures taken daily from Marietta, Ohio for this period. The Toronto records don't start until 1840.

JAN 1837 was in general a colder than normal (all references to normal would be similar to today, the New England climate has not changed that much) and generally very dry with many clear days noted. The wind directions noted were almost all between W and N and only a few minor frontal disturbances passed (from the barometric readings and other clues). This was in contrast with the previous month which had seen numerous deep depressions and wide temperature swings towards the end. In fact, after a rather weak last salvo of that regime on New Years, there was only one other precip event noted all through January, quite rare for New England, and that was a strong nor'easter on the 21st that brought about a foot of snow and some freezing rain. Other than that, the month seemed fairly placid but cold, although not frigid by local standards. The observer notes "a remarkable aurora borealis" on the 25th. Looking briefly at Marietta OH, the pattern looks relatively milder, almost at a normal level, and there is a much milder period before the nor'easter which seems to have been associated with a shallow blocking high at that point as winds were probably southeast in the Ohio valley until just before the storm developed.

FEB 1837 had a mid-month pattern change as the cold, dry regime seemed to give way to a broad trough with frequent minor to moderate precip events, and near normal temperatures. There were no drastic temperature changes and signs of stagnant high pressure around the middle of the month before the pattern change set in (colder nights and light winds). There were frequent falls of either cold rain or wet snow during the last ten days and highs generally 3-5 C (the record is of course in F). Back west in Ohio the month started out relatively mild, had the mid-month high pressure cold signal and then went quite mild so that one gets the impression this was a very shallow trough in eastern North America that had a storm track from about northern Ohio to southern New England. The month ended with a strong surge of arctic air south and rain changed to snow before temperatures went into the deep freeze.

MAR 1837 saw the cold locked in for the first ten days, then the pattern becomes fairly average looking with temperatures climbing erratically through the usual range of 0-10 C daytime readings, and a few rather strong looking frontal passages mid-month, but no apparent connection to the warmer air masses as warm sectors were mostly capped around 9-10 C. A spell of misty northeast flow with rather low pressures was observed 21st to 25th, then it was back into a rather cold zonality. Marietta meanwhile had some apparent incursions of Gulf warmth during the second week to mid-month warmer spell, otherwise the pattern looks quite similar.

APR 1837 began with two rather heavy rainfalls on 1st and 8th, 40 mm or more, separated by rather mild to warm weather (to about 17 C) with southeast winds. It was not as warm in Ohio, a sign that there was deep troughing over the mid-section of the U.S. and blocking in the western Atlantic. After the second of these rainstorms, the weather turned quite chilly, indicating that the trough had moved east and there were no further heavy rains or days much above 10 C at any point until the last two days of the month -- this cool period produced a lot of weak precip events and a rain-snow mix with temperatures steady 2-4 C around the 22nd to 24th (light precip amounts). Then it turned sunny and quite warm at the end of the month and reached 22 C.

MAY 1837 has all the signs of mid-continent warmth and a cold source to the north and northeast of New England, including several apparent "back-door" cold front passages early in the month. These can drop temperatures very rapidly from 20-25 C down into the single digits with perhaps one or two days of rain in between sometimes. That was going on quite actively most of the month. It looks as though the warmer regime took over mid-month and it became very warm and humid at times, with some apparent stalled fronts at other times (cool NE winds and rain). There were some very heavy rainfalls, amounting to twice or almost three times a normal amount (180 mm in total, 60 mm in one event on 16th). This observer is not big on noting thunder for some reason, I would imagine some of these rains were quite thundery. Marietta was in a similar looking pattern and must have had a very hot day on the 5th (they only recorded daily means, but that day was 29 C average of several different times of day). So in general this looks like a month dominated by eastern arctic or Greenland blocking to me, with very warm air trying to work its way north during the month.

SUMMER 1837 was generally a rather cool and dry season. The first half of June at both locations was perhaps a bit above normal but all other portions until mid-September ran somewhat below normal and there were no 90 deg (32 C) mid-day readings at Providence all year which is unusual, in fact even 85 F (29 C) was rarely noted.

As this reminded me about the very cold January in 1838, I had a look at that, the weather was actually very mild in New England throughout January 1838, and it was 13 C on the 17th just around when record cold was developing in the CET zone.

Now we need somebody to look up the weather in Bermuda or the Azores to get a fuller picture of the Atlantic circulation during this anomalous spring of 1837.

[Roger J Smith]

A remarkable jump in temperature between April 30th and May 1st after consistent cold throughout April.

I wonder how snowy that spring was?

Daily temps didn't suddenly rise there, he's tracking the monthly CET values from 1st to end of month, so as there was a spell of moderate warmth near end of April the April mean was rising slowly, then you get to 1st of May and there are no April readings in the average. Here are the actual daily mean temperatures for the five months:

Read these with a decimal place, e.g., JAN 1 -33 is -3.3 C. The last reading for 31 May is 14.3 C. Sorry these are small, looked different on my edit screen.

JAN 1 -33 -32 15 14 21 55 26 18 64 54 -18 22 51 15 8 13 31 20 13 4 40 76 79 80 54 36 20 6 3 33 50 FEB 1.. 52 53 41 22 10 9 26 42 73 80 64 59 62 44 48 91 56 61 64 60 70 54 55 33 19 19 30 22 MAR 1 ..7 20 27 34 40 34 27 38 50 49 35 25 31 33 27 24 22 19 18 -5 -8 -9 -8 -5 17 19 16 42 48 25 18 APR 1 .. 32 44 33 36 31 32 32 26 17 5 15 24 22 31 48 22 47 45 60 56 40 63 61 68 88 97 63 83 89 102 MAY 1 121 122 123 95 86 86 102 87 57 60 88 80 90 102 99 95 143 85 70 75 65 65 77 85 114 115 125 143 148 124 143

Edited March 29, 2013 by Roger J Smith

[Terminal Moraine]

Ah yes! That'll teach me to skim read things; I was taking each value as the daily mean and it's obvious it's not when I look at it again.

[AderynCoch]

To put this incredible spring into perspective, March was even colder than this year, April was the coldest on record and May was exceptionally cold at sub-10C.

Even with the exceptionally cold start to spring this year, it would still take something like the coldest April on record plus one of the coldest ever Mays (or vice-versa) to beat Spring 1837.

Edited March 30, 2013 by AderynCoch