TWT #167 –

On June 16th, 1818, an ice dam that had formed on a lake in Switzerland during the volcanic winter of 1816, failed catastrophically and killed 40 people.

To understand this weird ice dam scenario, we have to rewind a few years.

In 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted with a fury. The “Volcanic Explosivity Index” was a SEVEN! Can you believe that? A seven on the VEI scale?

Alright fine I’ll admit I’ve never heard of the “Volcanic Explosivity Index” before, but it sounds awesome and a score of seven seems pretty high.

The hole left by the eruption of Mount Tambora

The massive amount of ash thrown into the sky by this eruption (can’t stress this enough: a SEVEN on the VEI scale!) spread all across the Earth, acting as a barrier between the Sun and lowering temperatures the world over.

I also want to stress that this phenomenon is called a “volcanic winter,” which is also such a cool phrase. I hope we get to experience one sometime soon!

This volcanic winter was so severe, that crop production in the US was decimated. In May of 1816, a late frost killed off most of the crops in New England. Religious farmers in New York reported that “all was froze” and “barren like winter.”

All throughout June there were frosts and below-freezing nights in New York, Maine and Massachusetts. Rivers and lakes in Pennsylvania had thin layers of ice all throughout July and August.

A newspaper in Virginia complained that “It is now the middle of July, and we have not yet had what could properly be called summer… the air has been damp and uncomfortable, and frequently so chilling as to render the fireside a desirable retreat.”

Meanwhile across the pond, both Britain and Ireland suffered from serious crop failure and a following famine. In Germany, food prices raised so high because of the shortage, that protests and rioting broke out in front of grain market and bakeries.

Meanwhile in India, the cold weather caused floods, which messed up the monsoon season, which led to late-season flooding, which somehow spread cholera all over the country (Classic India).

In short: the whole world was on the fritz.

Zoom into western Switzerland where the problems didn’t stop after 1816. Apparently the summers of both ’16 and ’17 were so mild that the ice never actually melted. Some of that ice formed itself into a dam around a lake in the region of Valais.

With this new dam blocking the lake from draining, it filled up like never before.

Ignaz Venetz, the Swiss glaciologist who was in charge of draining the lake before the dam broke… he did not succeed.

But finally, exactly 201 years ago today, that dam gave way and dumped insane amounts of water onto the town below, killing 40 civilians.

(Way to go, Ignaz).

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