The Year Without a Summer & Long Range Update

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]If you've been following the weather lately, you may be saying, "Are we even going to have a summer this year?" We've seen a persistent trough in the east that's been delaying the spring-like warmth and cloud cover and has really kept our temperatures suppressed for the last several weeks in many areas. But barring something extremely out of the ordinary, I don't see how summer doesn't arrive eventually. Because for that to happen, you need something much more than just a stubborn spring winter pattern. And that actually has happened before. It's been a long time. Back in 1816, parts of the United States experienced summer snow, repeated frost, failed crops, and temperatures so cold that people called it the year without a summer. And the reason it happened, it had nothing to do with El Nino, Leninia, really nothing there. It started with one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history. at least our history. April 1815, Mount Tambbora erupted in Indonesia. According to the USGS, the eruption blasted a huge amount of ash and sulfur dioxide high into the Earth's atmosphere. It was a huge event.

[00:01:11]But in this video, we're talking about the atmospheric change that happened, and it was a big one. Volcanic eruptions put tons and tons of materials into the atmosphere and all the way up into the stratosphere. And that's where things really get interesting. The tiny gases form sulfate aerosols and other tiny particles as well are floating around reflecting sunlight back into space before it fully reaches the Earth's surface. The atmosphere basically created a shade across the entire globe.

[00:01:39]And when you change the temperature of the atmosphere, especially as you head into summer, your circulation patterns start to change. And in this particular year, your jetream was much further to the south as the higher latitudes just didn't warm up nearly as warm as they normally do. Cold air intrusions became more persistent. And by 1816, weather across the United States, North America, even into Europe, and really globally started behaving in ways that people had never really seen before. Think about it. We didn't have satellites. We had no idea what in the world was going on. In the summer of 1816, repeated cold air intrusions were pushing unusually far south into the eastern United States, also across the West. And it wasn't just one cold outbreak. The atmosphere stayed abnormally cool for months. In fact, the National Park Service has reports of snow in Albany, New York in June of 1816. Snow also fell in Maine in June.

[00:02:37]Cape May, New Jersey had frost for five straight nights in late June. Can you imagine? And frost continued into parts of Virginia deep into August. It wasn't just a normal cool, damp summer. This was a huge impact on the growing season.

[00:02:52]In some places, it pretty much ended it.

[00:02:55]Even Thomas Jefferson documented this event. Jefferson was one of America's earliest weather observers. And in 1816, he talked about the strange cold affecting the Virginia crops and a lot of the eastern US. He wrote that summer had been quote as cold as a moderate winter. Folks noticed too, you had sunset that looked extremely vivid and colorful, almost like what we see when there's a lot of smoke and haze in the atmosphere. And the folks in 1816 described eerie skies with unusual lighting conditions as all of that mess up in the high stratosphere was just refracting and reflecting the sunlight.

[00:03:35]Think about this globally. There were no satellites, no models to look at to figure out what's going on. They just watched things get weirder and weirder month after month. So, yes, spring has been cooler across lots of the United States. The persistent trough that we've seen across a lot of the Great Lakes and the Northeast is forecast to ease up as we head toward the end of May. And then as we head into June, this is where things get exciting, right? You start to feel warm, you start to get hot in some areas. And my question is, we're still dealing with this, at least if you look at the European weeklys, the stubborn low up here just north of the Hudson Bay. And this, friends, has been notorious for dropping in these cooler shots of air, specifically across parts of eastern Canada, the Great Lakes region, and the Northeast, and as far south, I'd argue, as the Carolas, even into parts of the Deep South. However, you get into summer, it's really tough to push fronts this far south as the westerlys and the stronger jetream stays up here into Canada. However, we will have to watch things and it's not unprecedented to have cool shots. I think it stays below average, but will it be the year without a summer? No. I think that's extreme. Do we know exactly what it's going to do this summer? I would argue no. The best we have are long range models, and they're shoddy at best. Let's be real. But they're catching on to the idea that a huge subtropical high is likely going to develop somewhere across the central US.

[00:04:58]And this means really warm weather. But your jetream coming in here to the Pacific Northwest as your temperatures warm up across the northern parts of Canada and Alaska. And with the change of the season, you really start to warm things up across the northern hemisphere. you get much less of a temperature difference between the hot air across the United States and the relatively cooler air across Canada and Alaska. The storms just aren't as strong. And the cold air, well, hey, it's not really there, unlike the summer of 1816, which again, I do not think we're in for that. But in the short range, it's likely going to stay cool with another chilly shot of air for the eastern United States as we head into this weekend. We've got another one starting to build across western Canada as we head into Saturday and Sunday. And we'll start to really feel that influence across the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada. However, we can't ignore the heat across the central states. Temperatures will be climbing way above average. But this next cool shot is going to be a little different.

[00:05:59]It looks like it's going to move into the central United States into the Rockies, bringing temperatures back into this region below average with maybe even some snow flying into the mountains. And we do get a bit of a warmup for the Northeast. So enjoy it.

[00:06:13]If you're looking for some summerlike temperatures, I think we're going to start to really see that as we head toward the 21st and 22nd. But unfortunately, I do not think it's going to last. Another cold front blast into the region. We start to see some cooler air. And look what's building back across western Canada. Again, if you didn't know any better, you'd think I didn't do much. And because we're seeing another shot on the European toward the end of its window of view here, and what moves south, I'm just saying at this point, we've seen this cold air move across the northern US. And what does it usually do? It pivots into the Northeast. So, I think there's a couple of more roller coaster rides with temperatures over the next several weeks, at least until we get into June.

[00:06:55]So, there you go. I do think we're going to have a summer. I think this is just a cool spring and we'll all be praying for cold again or at least cool weather again by the time we get into July and August. And finally, when we're looking at the long range, it's hard to ignore the ENSO index and we're watching what could be a really strong El Nino develop. That's when you get that warm water developing here into parts of the Eastern Pacific. Some of the longer range models are showing some incredibly warm temperatures possible by October.

[00:07:31]That could do a couple of things. First of all, my question is, is it going to limit our tropical activity in the Caribbean and the Gulf and into parts of the Atlantic? Possibly. So, but I'm more interested in what happens once we get into the fall and head into early winter. Because typically with an El Nino, as you get that strengthening warm water across the eastern Pacific, you start to cool off North America, especially into early winter, that develops a strong jetream. And a lot of times, it's a lot further south than the Pacific Northwest. And that puts a lot of precipitation across the four corner states into the southern parts of California and across the south. This looks a lot different than what we saw last year. The question will remain, how cold does it get up here early into the Arctic season? Do we develop a strong polar vortex? Does it lock up all the cold air? Or does it get more wavy and we end up with more cold intrusions?

[00:08:21]Kind of like what we saw this year, except we kind of had this huge ridge that just didn't want to break down across the West. So, a lot of questions still to go. Something I'm going to be tracking. If this seems just a little bit interesting to you, I hope you'll consider subscribing. Come back as we follow the weather together just about every day here on the channel. See you next time.