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drought

Weather History of New England – Six Storms that Changed Our World

Weather history often shapes our lives in ways we can’t imagine. But for storms of 1746, the French, under leadership of Duc D’Anville, might well have bombarded New England into submission. Would our state names sound better in French? We’ll never know.
But weather history does offer us some more concrete examples of how storms put their imprint on life as we know it today. Severe and bizarre weather events inspire gripping tales of courage and tragedy, destruction and rebirth, the marvelous and the mundane. But when the storm or flood or drought is over, we hear little more about them. But that doesn’t mean they stop affecting us, they’ve just faded into the background.

But weather history has actually affected the course of New England history as much as any war or election. We just don’t often see it or realize it.

The Year Without a Summer, for example, inspired religious revivalism and westward migration.

Boston and New York might look different today were it not for the Great Snow Hurricane of 1888.

Vermont’s landscape was changed forever by the flood of 1927. New maps of New England had to be drawn after the hurricane of 1938. Both storms changed the political landscape as well.

A terrible drought in 1947 produced 200 wildfires in Maine in just 20 days, forcing reform and centralization of the state’s firefighting abilities.

Weather history forced a complete reorganization of the weather service following the sudden, deadly Worcester tornado of 1953.

Here, then, are six tales of severe events in New England weather history that changed the region. Download them here.

Included in this report you’ll find all out about:.

1816, The Year Without a Summer – and why your ancestors might have changed faith because of it.
The Great White Hurricane of 1888 – and how it changed your commute to work.
The Vermont Flood of 1927 – and how it created the modern leaf-peeping craze.
Great New England Hurricane of 1938 – the event that touched every facet of life in New England.
The Drought Year When Maine Burned – and how it created the modern firefighter.
The Killer Worcester Tornado of 1953 – and how it gave birth to modern weather forecasting.

As you’ll discover, each of these events not only dramatically impacted New England when they happened, they still are shaping your world in ways you see today. They are six chapters in the weather history of New England that changed the world around us in amazing ways. Download the Weather History of New England today.

This report is for members of the New England Historical Society, so you’ll need to sign in to access it. If you’re not a member, isn’t it time you were? Why not register today? It’s free. Already a member? Download it now!

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The 1965 Drought, New England’s Worst Ever

It will probably be several centuries before the Northeast United States again suffers anything like the 1965 drought. It was the driest year of a 10-year dry spell that devastated farms and sent municipal leaders into a panic over the drinking supply.

There were actually two droughts: The agricultural drought, and the water-supply drought. Farmers tried to save their crops and fed their livestock in barns, while suburbanites were told not to wash their cars or take long showers.

There was a high pollen count, high fire danger and high prices for produce. Wells dried up. Rivers, ponds and reservoirs became stinking mud holes. The air was so dry foggy mornings disappeared along the coast.

According to climatologist W.C. Palmer, the 1965 drought was “such a rare event that we should ordinarily expect it to occur in this region only about once in a couple of centuries.”

The 1965 Drought

The 1965 drought actually occurred during 1961-69, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It began in 1960 in western Massachusetts, where precipitation was below average. Then in 1962 eastern Massachusetts dried up. The rest of the Northeast got little rain or snow.

From 1962 to 1966, 34 out of 46 months had below-average precipitation. The summer of 1964 was very dry. Overdrawn reservoirs weren’t replenished.

Then 1965 was the driest year on record since the late 19th century. The 1965 drought was most severe in northeastern Pennsylvania and southeastern New York. That year, Connecticut got only 29.45 inches of precipitation, far below the average of 46.15 inches. Maine was drier than in 1947, when fires destroyed nine communities and a quarter-million parched acres.

By July, communities were declaring water emergencies. Towns banned water use outside, but police and water departments were besieged by people calling to report neighbors who watered their lawns or washed their cars.

Sahara

Golf courses dug wells and dredged ponds. Fairways burnt up as watering was restricted to greens and tees. Brae Burn in Newton, Mass., “may as well be on the Sahara,” reported the Boston Globe. Brae Burn dug 20 test holes to find water. All were dry.

Part of the reservoir in Cambridge, Mass., oozed muck. In Norfolk, Mass., the 20-acre Kingsbury Pond was a stinking sea of mud. Commuters from the western suburbs in Boston rolled up their windows in summer to avoid smelling the stench of the Charles River. Usually water was discharged into the river to dampen the smell of the raw sewage that flowed into it. Not during the drought.

Herring couldn’t swim from the sea to fresh water to spawn. The Town of Pembroke, Mass., banned herring fishing and helped the fish upstream by carrying them in barrels. By fall, millions of herring spawned in fresh water couldn’t make it back to the sea in the dried-up streams. Trapped in ponds, the seagulls feasted on them.

Pastures, hayfields and cornfields were burned out by the 1965 drought. Dairy farms in Fairfield County, Conn., lost most of their pasture grass, and wells went dry for a third of them.

The honey crop in Vermont was smaller than usual. So was the blueberry crop in Maine. Shade trees, such as the Norway and sugar maple, were damaged. Along Rte. 2 between Concord and Cambridge, Mass., Red Pine needles turned brown.

Emergency

In July 1965, President Lyndon Johnson ordered a study to find out what the federal government could do to help New England. Cities and towns got loans of pumps and pipes to access the deepest arts of reservoirs. Some Massachusetts towns borrowed vintage World War II pipes from Fort Devens and Romulus Air Force Base to reach water beyond normal sources. It didn’t work. The pipe was too expensive to transport.

President Johnson

Rockport, Mass., got approval to use water from a quarry, so long as it was treated twice with chlorine. Also in Massachusetts, Randolph, Holbrook and Braintree banded together to get water from a gravel pit. Fitchburg hired a rainmaker.

The next month, 11 Massachusetts counties were declared drought disaster areas. More than a hundred Massachusetts towns restricted water. Hanover considered a moratorium on building permits. Sandy Pond beach was closed in Ayer after hundreds of dead fish floated to the surface, deprived of oxygen.

Scattered Relief

By September, some parts of New England got rain. In western Massachusetts, rain changed brown pastures to green and grass and alfalfa returning to some farms. Cranberry growers were skating by. Some reservoirs filled to capacity.

The 1965 drought eased in Northern New England except for coastal Maine. In Grand Isle County, Vermont, too much rain left standing water in fields.

Then temperatures dropped.

The water problem worsened in November because the cold locked precipitation above ground. In southeastern Massachusetts, a cold snap destroyed a quarter of the cranberry crop. Cranberry growers didn’t have enough water to flood their bogs and prevent the berries from freezing.

Test wells throughout New England reached record lows and nearly a dozen towns along the coast had to draw down their emergency supplies. On Nov. 1, 1965, the Quabbin Reservoir fell to 59 percent of capacity, a drop of 17 percent in 12 months.

Car washes, service stations and ski areas couldn’t get water.

The 1965 Drought Continues

Quabbin Reservoir after the 1965 drought

By April 1966, the rainfall shortage increased to nearly 37 inches since the drought started in 1963, reported the Boston Globe. That almost equaled a year’s supply of rain.

People thought the drought ended with heavy rain in July and persistent fog along the coast. A dry August ended that hope.

A Boston College scientist suggested detonating dynamite, creating tiny earthquakes, could end the 1965 drought. The disturbed soils would the presence of water and suggest areas for drilling, he said.

By October 1966, farmers said the drought had ended. But the water-supply drought had not. There wasn’t enough water in wells, water tables and reservoirs.

A wet spring in 1967 ended the drought. Above normal rain and snow from February to May filled the reservoirs. On April 25, 1967, Malcolm E. Graf, Massachusetts Water Resources Commissioner, stated the four-year drought, worst in New England’s recorded history, was over.

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New from the New England Historical Society! Click here to order your copy today.

Photo: Quabbin Reservoir By Solarapex at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11535183. Cracked mud By Rosser1954 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90076337. This story about the 1965 drought was updated in 2024.

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The 1762 Drought Troubles George Washington

The 1762 drought, one of the worst in New England history, stretched all the way to Virginia. It even prompted complaints from Mount Vernon.

The drought hit Eastern Massachusetts hardest, according to Sidney Perley, in his classic 1891 book Historic Storms of New England: Its Gales, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Showers With Thunder and Lightning.

George Washington, in a letter dated June 20, 1762, worried he wouldn’t harvest an ounce of tobacco.

We have had one of the most severe Droughts in these parts that ever was known and without a speedy Interposition of Providence (in sending us moderate and refreshing Rains to Molifie and soften the Earth) we shall not make one oz of Tobacco this year. Our Plants in spite of all our efforts to the contrary are just destroyed, and our grain is absolutely perishing, how it may be in other parts of the Country I can not postively [sic] say, yet I have heard much complaining.

The 1762 Drought

In New England, the weather didn’t warm up until late, and it barely rained at all. The wells went dry, the grass dried up, vegetation scorched.

On July 7, Falmouth (now Portland) held a fast and prayer meeting on account of the drought. But hardly anyone went because they had to put out the fires that broke out.

Throughout the region, farmers prayed to God to avert the dreadful evil. On July 24, a cloudburst with thunder and lightning brought relief to Dorchester, Mass. But only Dorchester (now part of Boston) got wet. The fires continued, the earth got drier and the vegetation died. By late July, farmers thought the crops would fail completely.

And then at the end of July, wrote Perley, “A bounteous rain gladdened the earth.” It rained again on August 13 and August 16. Three days later, a great rain fell on New England/ And from that time on people had no reason to complain about the drought.

The crops were skimpy, however, and hay was so scarce it sold for four times its normal price the next winter. Grain and hay had to be imported from England. Many farmers slaughtered their cows because they couldn’t afford the price of hay.

The Dry Year

Farmers’ diaries tell the story of the terrible summer when the earth turned to dust.

Jeremiah Weare of York, Maine, called it the “dry year.” He noted hay was very scarce and dear, about $16 to $20 a ton.

Thomas Smith, a farmer in Portland, Maine, described the drought as a “melancholy dry time.” ”All are now looking for an absolute famine,” he wrote.

For the next 19 days, Smith simply recorded the weather as fair. After the bounteous rain on August 19, he no longer lamented the “sore and amazing” drought.

In Danvers, Mass., it didn’t rain until September 22.

This story last updated in 2022.

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Samuel Danforth, Star-Gazing Puritan, Sees A ‘Herald of wrath to a secure and impenitent World,’ aka, A Comet

When a mighty comet streaked across the night sky in 1664, Samuel Danforth predicted a series of catastrophes for his fellow Puritans who lived in the howling wilderness of New England.

He even did it in some of the first verses published in the New World:

There, with long bloody Hair, a Blazing Star
Threatens the World with Famine, Plague & War :
To Princes, death ; to Kingdomes many crosses : To all Estates, Inevitable Losses …

Danforth, both an astronomer and minister, created the first known almanac in America. He also delivered sermons described as powerful, eloquent and tearful.

In a pamphlet published about the comet of 1664, Danforth wrote the Bible made the purpose of comets very clear: as signals of great and notable changes.

And bad things had already started to happen in New England.

Samuel Danforth

Samuel Danforth was born Oct. 17, 1626 in Framingham, England. He migrated with his father and five siblings to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. He studied astronomy at Harvard College. After graduation in 1643 he stayed on as a tutor and published almanacs in 1647, 1648 and 1649. Those are the earliest surviving almanacs in America.

Ordained a minister in 1650, he became pastor of the church in Roxbury, Mass.

In 1670, he delivered one of the most famous sermons in history, A Brief Recognition of New-Englands Errand into the Wilderness, to the Massachusetts General Court.

Danforth, typical of the Puritans frightened by the frontier that crowded in on them, asked a question in the sermon. “What is it that distinguisheth New England from other Colonies and Plantations in America? ” The answer: They entered the “waste and howling wilderness” to “walk in the Faith of the Gospel with all good Conscience according to the Order of the Gospel, and your enjoyment of the pure Worship of God according to his Institution, without humane Mixtures and Impositions.”

Danforth was also a true product of the Puritan culture of condemnation. He rebuked tavern-goers when he saw them through his study window. When a young man named Benjamin Goad was hanged for having sex with a ‘lady horse’ in broad daylight, Danforth delivered a sermon justifying his execution as essential to preserving the church and society.

Comet of 1664

In the winter of 1664, a comet crossed the night sky and caught the attention of such European notables as Christopher Wren, Samuel Pepys and Isaac Newton. Pepys, in his diary, recorded “mighty talk” about the comet, and the king and queen had stayed up to watch it. Ordinary people went into a frenzy, prophesizing awful events – which did happen. They included one of the coldest winters in history, the plague and the Great Fire of 1666.

In New England, Danforth couldn’t resist offering a theological interpretation to the comet in a pamphlet. He gave it the daunting title An Astronomical Description of the Late Comet or Blazing Star; As it appeared in New-England in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and in the beginning of the 12th Moneth, 1664. Together with a Brief Theological Application thereof.

Though he lived in a howling wilderness, his conclusions about the comet conformed to contemporary scientific thought in Europe.

This Comet is not a new fixed Star, but a Planetick or Erratick Body, wandring up & down in the etherial firmament under the fixed stars.

The rest of it revealed pure Puritanical thinking. He wrote, for example,

The Holy Scriptures, which are the Authentick and un- erring Canon of truth, teach us to look at Comets, as Portentous and Signal of great and notable Changes.

Earthquake

Danforth also noted that an earthquake provided a similar warning four years earlier. The earthquake of 1663 caused some houses to be “rock’t like cradles” and might portend the “Lords shaking the foundations of our Churches and of our civil state.”

And he offered several examples of recent calamities: The death of Puritan ministers. Mr. John Norton, “translated into an higher Orb” and of whom New England was not worthy. Also the death of Samuel Stone, “the strength and glory of Connecticut” who “fell a sleep sweetly and placidly in the Lord.” (Stone was assistant to Thomas Hoooker, and Hartford was named for his home town.)

Their principal grain was turned into “an husk and rotteness” by “the sad Mildew and Blasting.”

A severe drought the previous summer burnt up their pastures, and early frosts “smote our Indian corn.”

He then concluded:

God forbid that any of us, should be Ασε΄ρες πλανη˜τας wandring Stars, Eccentrick and Erratick in our motions, as all Seducers and Impostors are for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Samuel Danforth lived another 10 years, dying on died November 19, 1674 at the age of 48.

This story updated in 2021.

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Harriet Low Endures Easter Sunday in Macao, 1830

Harriet Low was awakened by a spirited band in the street on Easter morning in the Portuguese colony of Macao on April 11, 1830. As a young woman raised in a Puritan family in Salem, Mass., such Papist customs weren’t exactly to her liking.

Harriet Low

Harriet Low was then 20, the daughter of shipping merchant Seth Low. In 1829, her uncle William Henry Low and his ailing wife Abigail had moved to China for five years on business. Harriet came along to keep Abigail company. William managed the China trade in Canton for one of the great American trading companies, Russell & Company, while Harriet and Abigail enjoyed a social whirl with expatriates in Macao, 60 miles away from Canton.

Two days earlier, Harriet recorded in her diary her thoughts on the Catholic celebration of Good Friday. She had seen a procession from the church carrying a coffin covered in black, ‘an image representing Our Savior,’ a woman representing his mother and two others, a fine band and flags.

It was all very solemn, she wrote, but, “I cannot think it right to perform such a ceremony. It seems horrid to me to see an image made to represent so divine a person.”

Harriet Low’s Easter

On Easter Sunday, 1830, Harriet Low wrote in her diary:

Sunday, April 11.–Was awakened from my sleep this morning by a band playing in the most spirited style. The music was fine. Another procession went from the church, and one man walking in it represented Christ risen from the dead. I could not help thinking how can any man that represents the Savior ever sin more? Only think, what could have been his feelings when walking through the streets representing that divine person! It makes me shudder.

Last night we had a most refreshing shower. The drought had become quite serious. The Chinese have fasted and prayed for rain, and have hired the Portuguese to pray for them.

This story was updated in 2022.

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