Warm Weather Woes Part One

 

Journal Opinion         July 30, 2025

The July 6, edition of The Boston Post declared the 1911 heat wave as "the worse weather disaster in New England." That day's temperatue reached 103 degrees.  Hundreds of New Englanders died from the heat during that July. 

In the 1940s, debris and slash from the 1938 hurricane fueled major forest fires in New Hampshire and Vermont.  Pictured are firefighters believed to be responding to the 1947 fire near Mount Sunapee, which was among the most severe. 

 This summer’s news is filled with climate change-driven stories of heat waves, forest fires, and flooding. My thoughts turned to historic climatic distresses that local residents endured during warmer months in times past. Where particular hardships were frequent, I selected some from before 1970 for reference.  

The hardships of one particular summer were remembered for decades. 1816 has been described as the “year without a summer.” Locally, there was “a chilly spring and a disastrous summer.”  “The corn was entirely destroyed in that year…even the wheat did not fill.”

This weather aberration was the result of the massive eruption of Mt. Tambora in April 1815. The ash and gases from this South Pacific explosion caused abnormal worldwide weather patterns until 1817.

In May 1816, winter-like temperatures with up to 5 inches of snow falling locally on May 15. It got worse. June was severe with some places receiving up to 18 inches of snow on several days in June.

The impact was disastrous as newly shorn sheep froze to death and newly sewn crops destroyed.

Early July experienced frosts, with the summit of Mt.Moosilauke snow covered twice that month. Farmers struggled to secure enough fodder for their livestock. 

Between August 9 and 13, a cold wave hit the region with frost with another snow covering the mountain tops in late August.

September was miserable with additional frosts. Winter arrived in late October with 12 inches of snow in Haverhill.

The impacts of this so-called summer included food shortages, loss of livestock, and a psychological gloom and apprehension. It made the idea of moving to the west all the more appealing.

Years later, many elders recalled the plight of the residents of “1816 and froze to death.” By 1818, things began to return to normal.  

Normal included frequent heat waves that caused significant hardships for Northern New England residents. Before the current century, the heat waves of 1896, 1911 and 1936 stand out as being among the most severe.

Local residents used a variety of strategies to deal with the high temperatures. Houses were built with wide porches and windows that would allow for cross ventilation. There were always the local lakes or mountain-side retreats. Mid-afternoon naps were available for those whose schedules allowed. Many urban dwellers just suffered.

After 1900, electric fans and refrigerators helped to keep things and people cool. In the 1930s commercial air-conditioning began to be installed. In 1938, the new Chimes Restaurant in Bradford advertised that added feature.

There were several periods of scorching heat during the late spring and summer of 1896. Area newspapers carried the news of local and national impacts. It began in May when central Vermont experienced several days with temperatures of 93-degree.

At one point in July and August, there were 10 days of relentless heat in many parts of the nation, with temperatures hovering about 90. The Rutland Daily Herald summarized the “suffering and mortality in many places around the nation” from Philadelphia to Chicago.

On Aug. 14, the Brandon, Vermont newspaper mentioned “nothing like the terrible heat of the past ten days has ever been experienced in Brandon. We have had hotter days before, but not such a long time of continuous, hot weather.”

Vermont newspapers carried advice for dealing with the dangers of the heat, including the purchase of cooling clothing. The traditional outfits of the day for many included layers of heavy clothing year-round.

 The Vermont Watchman warned that the high temperatures could cause spontaneous combustion in sawdust that had accumulated in icehouses.

The press also advised that the high temperatures led to bad tempers and a rise in assaults and murders, although none of the latter were mentioned locally. 

A different heat wave hit the state on July 2, 1911. A thermometer in Bellows Falls register a temperature of 108 on July 3, 1911. Nashua, New Hampshire recorded its highest temperature at 106 degrees on July 4, 1911. Thermometers in Orleans County registered up to 124 degrees in the sun.

There were five days of excessive heat during which stores and factories shut down. In neighboring New York, apples baked on the trees by the intense heat.

Boston and New York residents suffered multiple heat-related deaths and prostrations. Boston had 49 deaths in one day on July 6.  New England suffered 2,000 heat-related fatalities.

The heat wave was temporarily broken on July 6, by “the most severe and widespread electrical storm that ever visited the state.”    

One of the worse nationwide heat waves in U.S. history occurred in the late spring and summer of 1936. In May, the Piermont correspondent reported that individuals were overcome with the heat, and activities were cancelled.

Nationally, there were nearly 5,000 heat-related deaths during this period. Vermont newspapers carried news of the impact, especially in urban areas where many residents were forced to sleep outdoors to get relief.

Day after day, communities in Vermont recorded temperatures in the mid-90s. People and the landscape wilted under the unrelenting heat.

An electrical storm on July 8 brought both relief from the heat and much-needed rain. Bradford’s United Opinion reported, “gardens look fresh and green and the whole countryside has taken on new life.”  

These prolonged periods of high temperature were sometimes accompanied by drought. What follows is a description of several of New England’s most severe.

During the summer of 1816, northern New England experienced a severe drought. In some areas of Vermont, there was no precipitation other than snow for 4 months. Water levels in rivers, lakes, and wells sank. Smoke from forest fires blackened the sky. Rain, sometimes falling as snow, gave some relief in October.

Beginning in April 1859 and continuing until early September, there was little to no rain in Vermont. The Bradford Telegram described the drought as “remarkable, much greater than has been known for years.” Wells and springs were dry, and “mills in the village are compelled to suspend work.” In Danville, “the earth is completely parched…the pastures afford but little feed.”

One of the most severe drought periods was from 1929 to 1934. The conditions, which impacted large areas of the nation, were felt locally as well..    

By the late 1920s, there was a severe drought in southern Vermont. It resulted in reduced mill output and led to considerable crop loss.

By September 1930, Vermont newspapers reported water rationing in the worse drought in 15 years. In October, The Groton Times reported that the governor had closed the state’s woodlands.

The lack of regular rainfall led to a continued period of droughts throughout the state. As late as July 1934, it was reported that the drought had caused considerable damage to Vermont farms. There was a shortage of hay, leading to a reduction of herds.

That same condition marked the droughts in the period from 1962-5. It was described “as the most severe and long-lasting one in the previous fifty years.”

In October 1963, The United Opinion reported, “In this community, as elsewhere, the extreme drought is of a serious nature.” Statewide the impact on crops led to an increase sell-off of dairy herds. Christmas tree farms began to feel the effects of the reduced rainfall.

As late as early 1965, rainfall was still one-third of normal. Tinder-dry conditions led to increased forest fires and periodic closure of the state’s woodlands to hunting.

This was not the first  time forest fires resulted from drought. From colonial times, forest fires resulted from lightning strikes and outdoor burning. In 1816, smoke “blackened the sky, blocking the sun and obscuring the view everywhere.”

One of the most “catastrophic fire seasons” in New Hampshire and Vermont was in 1903. Every section, especially in the White Mountains, experienced fires that year and in the period following. In addition to the numerous forest fires, newspapers reported on smoke from Canadian fires. Sparks from railroad trains were sometimes the cause of fires. 

In the years that followed, town, state, and federal programs were established to deal with forest fires specifically and woodland management in general.  Fire towers were built in both states.

In the early 1940s, there were numerous forest fires fed by the debris left from the 1938 hurricane. The 1941 Marlow-Stoddard fire in southwestern New Hampshire and the 1947 fire near Mt Sunapee were two of the most severe.

In 1944, the U.S. Forest Service introduced Smokey the Bear as part of a public relations effort aimed at preventing these fires. Debris burning, campfires, and carelessly thrown cigarettes were targeted. In 1952, Bradford’s Veneer Mill management organized volunteers to fight forest fires in the local valley.

Droughts and fires were not the only warm-weather woes. Warm weather encourages infestations of pests. More than just the irritation of black and house flies and mosquitoes, these plagues included army worms and grasshoppers in the millions.

In 1770 and 1781, northern army worms descended on the local area in late July and disappeared in early September. One Thetford observer wrote, “Whole pastures we so covered that one could not put down a finger in a single spot, without touching a worm.”

The worms devoured wheat and corn crops, leaving little except bare stocks. Farmers dug ditches to save their field crops.

The destruction caused significant food shortages. The pumpkins that Haverhill and Newbury farmers had were not destroyed and they shared them with the neighboring towns. 

 In 1898, the army worms were described as “one of the most persistent and hard to exterminate pests known”

In July 1938, the worms appeared in Bradford and attacked the fields of oats. Earthen barriers were dug, but were ineffective. My father-in law, Harry Martin told me of their attempt to keep the army from crossing the River Road (Route 5) to reach their fields near the Newbury line. They had limited success. There have been occasional spotty outbreaks since.

Locusts are grasshoppers that swarm. While they often appear in western and plain states, on occasion, they have been a problem in New Hampshire and Vermont. When they do, “they eat everything in sight, but stone walls.”

In 1805, the Peacham newspaper reported, “seldom have these insects been more troublesome…leaving nothing but naked stumps and stems.”

In 1819, an infestation destroyed every green thing in areas between the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers. In 1914 and the late 1930’s these were widespread swarms. In August 1948, grasshoppers swarmed Burlington streets.

The impact of a swarm in 1962 led to a special town meeting in Hinsdale, New Hampshire. Currently, ticks  have replaced army worms and grasshoppers as problem pests.

While these pests were very visible, an invisible one attacked during the summer months from the 1890’s to the 1960’s. It was infantile paralysis, better known as polio. Polio season typically began in early summer and peaked in September.

The first epidemic in the nation was in Rutland, Vermont in August 1894. There were 118 cases and 19 deaths. For those who survived, it meant deformed limbs, braces, crutches, wheelchairs and, after 1938, breathing devices like the iron lung.

Little was known about the causes, with suggestions that it was the common house fly or something contained in dust.  Only later was it determined to be a virus that attacked the nervous system.

Between 1891 and 1925, there were approximate Vermont 800 cases annually. In the years that followed, increases in the number of cases led to the cancellation of schools, motion pictures, and public meetings. 

In 1935-1938, seasonal outbreaks caused theatres to be closed to children under 16, and youth camps also closed. In the years that followed, the number of annual national cases rose from 11,000 to 33,000 cases.

 In 1952, 3,100 victims died nationally from the disease in the worst epidemic In New Hampshire, there were 95 cases and 10 deaths. The polio ward at Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital was filled with local patients.

When, at the age of 10 years old that year, I visited my grandmother in Brattleboro, there were no swimming places or movies. I recalled injuring my hand and, for a brief moment, my parents’ fears were real.

After 1954, the widespread Salk vaccine clinics began to reduce the number of cases, and, by 1961, there were only 161 cases in America.  - 

Next month, I will continue this topic and address other warm weather-related topics including flash floods, hail, tornadoes, and hurricanes. In the meantime, we can only hope that warm weather woes will miss us.  Captions:

Boston Post Heat Wave News.  The July 6 edition declared the 1911 heat wave as ‘the worse weather disaster in New England.” That day temperatures reached 103 degrees. Hundreds of New Englanders died from the heat during that July.

NH Firefighters Battle Forest Fires. In the 1940s, debris from the 1938 hurricane fueled major forest fires in New Hampshire and Vermont. The 1947 fire near Mt. Sunapee in New Hampshire was among the most severe.