Was the Great Freeze of 1709 predicted?
Upvote:7
I support @DenisdeBernardy's answer but I hope I can provide some additional helpful notes.
Firstly, a forecast in the modern sense could not have been made before starting to think about meteorology as a science and weather as something to be forecast based on observations. I take the view that your question does not ask whether a doom-monger said that "this coming winter will be our end"/"winter is coming" but rather whether a reasoned argument was made beforehand on that the winter of 1709 would be difficult.
This could not have been so because though stand-alone observation posts had been set up by the mid-17th century, weather analysis techniques really only developed in the late 19th century:
The use of weather charts in a modern sense began in the middle portion of the 19th century. Weather map pioneers include William Charles Redfield, William Reid, Elias Loomis, and Sir Francis Galton, who created the first weather maps in order to devise a theory on storm systems. The invention of the telegraph in 1837 made it possible to gather weather information from multiple distant locations quickly enough to preserve its value for real-time applications.
It was not until the invention of the electric telegraph in 1835 that the modern age of weather forecasting began.
Weather lore, on the other hand, ("warm summer, warm winter", etc) is either too specific to be of value on a continent-scale or not proven to be correct.
Secondly, I would counter your suggestion that Karl XII moved into the Ukraine because of the winter. The move south was related to the tactical situation at the time, and while Englund's 'Poltava' mentions of a hard winter, this is not an incentive for the moves but rather a common obstacle for all warring parties:
The summer was warm and rainy. The soldiers had to exert themselves. Rye [probably mistranslated the grain] grew slowly and that meant raw grain had to be harvested... The Russians scorched the area between the Swedish army and Smolensk in great detail. ... The race into the Ukraine began. The Swedes and the Russians went south fast as possible: both wanted to gain control over the fertile territory in as great an extent as possible.
—Englund, 'Poltava', free translation from Estonian
...on the day following the news of Lesnaya the King wrote to Mazeppa promising his support and requesting the provision of winter quarters in the Ukraine. With a friendly populace and plentiful supplies, the Ukraine was seen as 'a country flowing with milk and honey'. The plan was now to winter the army in the Ukraine and to attack Moscow from the south in the spring.
...
The winter of 1708/9 came early. It was to be the worst in living memory. Birds froze in the trees, and riders and horses died as one frozen mass. The only protection from the icy wind in the empty Ukrainian landscape were the few towns and villages, which became fought over with a ruthlessness brought on by the need to survive. Despite the conditions, both monarchs saw advantages in continuing the fighting.
...
Charles's main aim was to ensure the safety of his winter quarters by ejecting the Russians from the settlements west of the lliver Vorskla, which would give him a secure territorial boundary.
—Konstam, 'Poltava 1709'
Upvote:9
Per the wikipedia page I edited into your answer, the causes were unknown, and it is still inexplicable using modern climate models, so even if someone had predicted it it would not have been based on anything other than guesswork.
This winter event has drawn the attention of modern-day climatologists in the European Union's Millennium Project because they are presently unable to correlate the known causes of cold weather in Europe today with weather patterns documented in 1709. According to Dennis Wheeler, a climatologist at the University of Sunderland: "Something unusual seems to have been happening".
Modern climate models do not appear to be entirely effective for explaining the climate of 1709.
Supporting sources from the wiki pages:
Adding to this, intuitively it makes sense to assume that the cause would have been some kind of polar vortex coming down onto Europe or its whereabouts. Usually this introduces pockets of cold coming from Siberia into Europe brought by winds from the (North-)East, as happened during the nastier winters we had in the past few years. The very odd part about the 1709 winter is that winds were reportedly coming from the West and the South.
More post
- 📝 Why did the original Carthage never become a Roman city?
- 📝 Was the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea part of the Allies or the Axis or neither?
- 📝 What describes the average pre-colonial NA Native American lifestyle (across several tribes)?
- 📝 Why didn't Wehrmacht soldiers refuse to kill civilians?
- 📝 How long would it take to cross the Channel in 1890's?
- 📝 What happened to people who lived outside a castle when the castle was under siege?
- 📝 What kind of siege weapons were used during Punic wars?
- 📝 Did Ben Franklin actually make any tofu?
- 📝 Why Finland received so little foreign support during the winter war?
- 📝 Broad and deep historical causes of gang violence in Mexico and El Salvador
- 📝 Why did Russia accept the legal framework that led to Kosovo's independence?
- 📝 Is eenie meenie miney mo about lynching?
- 📝 Does any country have an official celebration for the annexation of foreign territory?
- 📝 Why did Argentina invade the Falklands when they did, rather than wait for the pending sale of the UK aircraft carriers to complete first?
- 📝 What knowledge may have been lost at the Library of Alexandria?
- 📝 Research on the unit "Mark"
- 📝 Have there been "mechanical paintings" in real life?
- 📝 How and why did the progress of Army Group A differ from what the terrain in the Caucasus might suggest?
- 📝 Did Hitler brag about or downplay his war experiences in WW I in appealing to 1932 voters?
- 📝 In what sense was marriage in 19th century Europe "expensive"?
- 📝 What class / type of ship was the "Dragon" from Rotterdam c. 1732?
- 📝 Were there more robberies of "commercial" or "personal" nature in 19th century in USA?
- 📝 In the election of 1800, why did Burr end up with as many electoral votes as Jefferson, rather than one fewer?
- 📝 Constantine the Great created the Chi-Rho from the Greek word for "Christ". Why choose Greek over Latin, even though he was Roman?
- 📝 What did Moritz Ormai forge and what happened to him?
- 📝 In which direction does the thumb point in the "pollice verso?"
- 📝 Was there ever a queen or female ruler who killed her child to preserve her power?
- 📝 Was there ever support for any persons outside of the empire to be elected Holy Roman Emperor?
- 📝 Would a leader in a monarchy be able to hand their reign over to someone else?
- 📝 Why have major sporting events been held every 4 years?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Was the Great Freeze of 1709 predicted?
- 📝 Was Alexander the Great Greek or Macedonian?
- 📝 What was the first solar eclipse that was demonstrably predicted in advance?
- 📝 Who governed while Alexander the Great was away conquering Asia?
- 📝 Was it possible for a young Japanese woman to end up enslaved in Great Britain in the mid-1600s?
- 📝 Who was the most successful German spy against Great Britain in WWII, from the contemporary German perspective?
- 📝 Constantine the Great created the Chi-Rho from the Greek word for "Christ". Why choose Greek over Latin, even though he was Roman?
- 📝 Was Theodoric the Great killed by Justinian?
- 📝 Could Great Britain have built the British Empire if it was not the pioneer of the Industrial Revolution?
- 📝 How was Alexander the Great able to rule so much territory?
- 📝 Was Alexander the Great ever an emperor?
- 📝 What was the personal philosophy of Alexander the Great in his youth?
- 📝 Was the Stock Market Crash of 1929 a cause or result of the Great Depression?
- 📝 Before the Great War, was the word "Poland" typically used to refer only to the Russian partition of Poland?
- 📝 Why in the 70s and 80s was the United Kingdom called Great Britain in the international naming conventions?
- 📝 How tall was Frederick the Great of Prussia?
- 📝 Was Fredrick the Great considered a strong military leader or was it all because of the superior officers that came out of Prussia at the time?
- 📝 Was Alexander the Great undefeated in every battle?
- 📝 Was there relative peace in the Middle East before the end of the Great War?
- 📝 During the Great Depression in America, was there an increase in popularity of Communism?
- 📝 Was The Great Game a war?
- 📝 Why was the German Jewish population declining so much that some statisticians predicted its disappearance even before the 3rd Reich?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 Why was Poland spared from the Black Death?
- 📝 Did medieval scholars believe the Earth was round?
- 📝 Is there any evidence to support the claim that the United States was "suckered into WW1" by Zionists, made by Benjamin Freedman in his 1961 speech?
- 📝 Why was Africa colonized last of the continents in the Age of Discovery?
- 📝 Was the secession of the Confederate states illegal?