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How Cold Is It?
Some people have been surprised at the snow and frozen canals in the duchy, especially as far south as Provence and Languedoc. Both southern areas are uncomfortably hot during the summer, and yet during the winter, the canals are frozen! We checked some records and found that this has been going on intermittently for centuries:
1507 - Port of Marseilles (Provence) was entirely frozen - 3 feet of snow fell
1565 - Rhone frozen entirely at Arles
1568 - 11 Dec., loaded carts crossed the Rhone on the ice.
1570, 1571 - End of Nov 1570 to end of Feb 1571, carts could pass across iced rivers in Languedoc/Provence
1594 - Sea frozen at Marseilles and at Venice (at least -20C)
1621-1621 Venetian fleet hemmed in by the ice in the channels of Venice
1638 galleys in the port of Marseilles blocked in by ice
1655, 1656 - Seine frozen from the 8th to 18th December and again on 29th Dec to 28th Jan.
1657, 1658 - Seine entirely frozen
1662, 1663 - Frost lasted at Paris from 5th Dec to 8th Mar
1676-1677 2 Dec - 13 Jan, Seine frozen 35 days
1684 Thames frozen at London to 11 inches thick
1709 Gulf of Venice and Mediterranean frozen at Genoa, Marseilles, Cette (Languedoc)
1716 Thames frozen - Great number of shops and stalls were established on the river
1740 Thames frozen
Since as recently as 1742, the Seine has been frozen at least 7 times:
1742 -10C
1744 -9C
1762 -9C
1766 -9C
1767 -16C
1776 -12C
1788 -12C
1749-1781 - temperature never dropped below -9C at Provence, but dropped to -17C in Marseilles!
Seawater typically freezes at about -2C. Most canals are freshwater, including much of the Canal du Midi which is fed from a mountain lake, so the freezing temperature is 0C.
OOC - from The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. - 8 January, 1825
Low temperature at Provence for 1749-1781 has been corrected. The original source of this information is from the 27th volume of the "Annales de Chimie et de Physique" which according to William Darby in his book "View of the United States - Historical, Geographical, and Statistical" prints the extract with negative numbers while the Gazette printed some of the numbers (like the Seine temps) without negative signs.
Merci Bedrich, for this historical weather report !
It will later be called the "Little Ice Age", and is considered to have lasted from 1300-1850. However, the notes from the source for this indicate that the Po and the Rhone rivers were frozen solidly in 1216, and again in 1234. Loaded carts crossed the Adriatic on the ice in front of the city of Venice. In 1236, "the Danube remained frozen to its greatest depth for a considerable time." The article was written in 1825 because people were concerned that something was happening to the climate because the weather was so extreme. He was pointing out that this cold weather has been going on for a very long time.
Our family's chef has made a few dishes with potatoes, one with thinly sliced potatoes, sauteed, and cheese, quite delicious, although whether potatoes will really ever catch on outside of rural areas, I find it very hard to say ...Sister Marie-Charles used to tell us, "Sometimes it is quite warm and sometimes it is quite cool, and you should pray God you have good shade and water in warmth and a good coat and firewood in the cool." Such a dear, wise sister!
Well, as I said once or twice, I served in Acadie, and all i can say is: if it's a 'lttle ice age' here, what name should we give it in Canada?