Weather Anomalies in Transylvania, the Banat and Partium from 1813 to 1818, as Reflected in Contemporary Sources
Weather Anomalies in Transylvania, the Banat and Partium from 1813 to 1818, as Reflected in Contemporary Sources

Summary/Abstract: The article is based on documentary sources from the Romanian, Hungarian and German ethnic groups from Transylvania, Partium and the Banat. These include newspapers, chronicles, and notes in liturgical books. The article offers an overview of weather variability in 1812–1818, like changes in temperature, precipitation, and storms, which led to higher food prices, and to a food and livestock feed crisis. The period under examination begins in the summer of 1812, when very low winter temperatures and a cool summer were recorded in these provinces. It includes the summer of 1815, when Europe witnessed the first effects of Tambora’s eruption. It ends in 1818 when the administrative measures introduced to combat the food crisis and famine were not needed any more. The natural events depicted and recorded in the above-mentioned sources were part of the worldwide weather extremes, which are presented here in their regional-European context.

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