The July When Snow Fell

Name: The July When Snow Fell
Genre: Documentary

Snow falls on New England in July 1816, opening a planetary mystery whose answer lies at a volcano thousands of miles away.

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Transcript

In July 1816, snow fell in New England.
Frosts occurred throughout the summer in New England. Across the quiet landscape, a sense of unease settled in.
Summer frosts pushed major New England crops toward almost total failure.
Tree rings rank 1816 among the coldest summers in six centuries.
Summer had become something families could no longer trust.
The season was the Year Without a Summer, driven by global cooling.
Across Europe, cold rain kept Mary Shelley indoors writing Frankenstein.
An atmospheric veil also reduced sunlight reaching Earth's surface.
Tambora put 60 megatons of sulfur in the atmosphere.
Smaller eruption particles reached the stratosphere and could spread worldwide more easily.
Trace dimmed sunlight across the planet toward Sumbawa, Indonesia.
April 10th, 1815, Tambora had history's largest recorded eruption.
It cut Tambora from 14,100 feet to just under 10,000 feet.
The Rajah of Sanggar described Tambora as appearing like liquid fire.
Pyroclastic flows erased whole villages, causing tsunamis at sea.
Tambora turned restless in 1812, staying active between 1812 and 1815.
April 5th, 1815, explosions were mistaken for distant cannon fire.
People sent ships and military expeditions to probe supposed attacks.

But to find what stole summer, we must return to a mountain on Sumbawa that had been rumbling since 1812.

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