What was the weather in New York City on May 23, 1838?
March 4, 2015 4:03 PM Subscribe
I know you weren't there. Can you point me to a report from someone who was?
The Jamaica Union Hall weather station has records going back that (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/homr/#ncdcstnid=12003799&tab=MSHR). I can't find where you can actually get the data, though.
posted by crazy with stars at 4:28 PM on March 4, 2015
posted by crazy with stars at 4:28 PM on March 4, 2015
this diary looks promising although it doesn't appear to be available online.
posted by Karaage at 4:35 PM on March 4, 2015
posted by Karaage at 4:35 PM on March 4, 2015
You may find clues in this publication:
Results of a Series of Meteorological Observations at Sundry Station in the State of New York From 1826-1850
posted by prinado at 5:23 PM on March 4, 2015
Results of a Series of Meteorological Observations at Sundry Station in the State of New York From 1826-1850
posted by prinado at 5:23 PM on March 4, 2015
whoever posesses the revords of the port authority would have a weather ledger perhaps.
posted by nickggully at 5:33 PM on March 4, 2015
posted by nickggully at 5:33 PM on March 4, 2015
The Port Authority has only been around since the 1920s but, yes, if there are harbormaster weather records somewhere that might be worth chasing down.
Weather observations weren't too plentiful in the 1830s and it's going to be a bit of a crapshoot as to whether those observations have been digitized. Are you looking for quantitative information like high/low temperature or whether it rained? If so, look into the National Climatic Data Center mentioned above as they are the US government's official repository of weather and climate data. The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell keeps weather records for New York. I don't know if they would have the data but they might be able to point you in the right direction.
If you are interested in more qualitative information of the "a storm, the likes of which even the oldest person in town has never seen before, rained upon us yesterday" variety your best bet is newspapers or diaries. I would see if the New York Public Library could assist. You might also want to check out the city Department of Records and the State Archives. The latter lost much of their collection in a devastating fire in 1911, so there is a big gap in the state records.
posted by plastic_animals at 6:11 PM on March 4, 2015
Weather observations weren't too plentiful in the 1830s and it's going to be a bit of a crapshoot as to whether those observations have been digitized. Are you looking for quantitative information like high/low temperature or whether it rained? If so, look into the National Climatic Data Center mentioned above as they are the US government's official repository of weather and climate data. The Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell keeps weather records for New York. I don't know if they would have the data but they might be able to point you in the right direction.
If you are interested in more qualitative information of the "a storm, the likes of which even the oldest person in town has never seen before, rained upon us yesterday" variety your best bet is newspapers or diaries. I would see if the New York Public Library could assist. You might also want to check out the city Department of Records and the State Archives. The latter lost much of their collection in a devastating fire in 1911, so there is a big gap in the state records.
posted by plastic_animals at 6:11 PM on March 4, 2015
In the book linked by scrinado, if you scroll all the way down to page 98, there's a chart of May in Brooklyn in many different years, including 1838. I know this is about Brooklyn because of the heading on page 96: "Summary of Observations at Erasmus Hall, Flatbush, Kings County, NY, During 24 Years."
Unfortunately, there are only aggregate statistics for the whole month, with no info about specific days. So I don't know if any of this is helpful, but this at least lets you narrow it down to May 1838.
The headings at the top of the columns for each month are pixelated and barely legible. But the three main headings on the columns for each chart say: "Thermometer," "Winds (No. of Days)," "Weather (No. of Days)."
"Thermometer" is broken down into 5 columns: "Mean Temperature: First Half," "Mean Temperature: Second Half," "Highest Degree," "Lowest Degree," and I can't read the last one.
"Winds" is broken down into 8 columns: "North," "Northeast," "East," "Southeast," "South," "Southwest," "West," "Northwest."
"Weather" is broken down into 6 columns, from left to right: "Clear," "Cloudy," "Rain," "Snow," "Rain and snow," and I can't read the last one.
The numbers for May 1838 are (I'm assuming that what appear to be commas in the book should be understood as periods):
"Temperature": 51.65, 59.66, 74, 37, 37
"Winds": 1, 4.5, .5, 5, 6, 6, 1.5 (or could be 4.5), 3.5
"Weather": 19.5, 11.5, 6.5, [blank], [blank], 4.34
Notice that the first two numbers for "Weather" add up to 30, because there are 30 days in May. So, there were 19.5 "clear" days in May 1838, and 11.5 "cloudy" days that month. And 6.5 of the days had rain, and none had snow.
As for temperature, it seems that the "mean" (average) was 51.65 in the first half of May 1838, and it was 59.66 in the second half. The highest temperature in the whole month was 74, and the lowest was 37.
posted by John Cohen at 6:59 PM on March 4, 2015
Unfortunately, there are only aggregate statistics for the whole month, with no info about specific days. So I don't know if any of this is helpful, but this at least lets you narrow it down to May 1838.
The headings at the top of the columns for each month are pixelated and barely legible. But the three main headings on the columns for each chart say: "Thermometer," "Winds (No. of Days)," "Weather (No. of Days)."
"Thermometer" is broken down into 5 columns: "Mean Temperature: First Half," "Mean Temperature: Second Half," "Highest Degree," "Lowest Degree," and I can't read the last one.
"Winds" is broken down into 8 columns: "North," "Northeast," "East," "Southeast," "South," "Southwest," "West," "Northwest."
"Weather" is broken down into 6 columns, from left to right: "Clear," "Cloudy," "Rain," "Snow," "Rain and snow," and I can't read the last one.
The numbers for May 1838 are (I'm assuming that what appear to be commas in the book should be understood as periods):
"Temperature": 51.65, 59.66, 74, 37, 37
"Winds": 1, 4.5, .5, 5, 6, 6, 1.5 (or could be 4.5), 3.5
"Weather": 19.5, 11.5, 6.5, [blank], [blank], 4.34
Notice that the first two numbers for "Weather" add up to 30, because there are 30 days in May. So, there were 19.5 "clear" days in May 1838, and 11.5 "cloudy" days that month. And 6.5 of the days had rain, and none had snow.
As for temperature, it seems that the "mean" (average) was 51.65 in the first half of May 1838, and it was 59.66 in the second half. The highest temperature in the whole month was 74, and the lowest was 37.
posted by John Cohen at 6:59 PM on March 4, 2015
On second thought, it seems more likely that the punctuation in those mean temperatures was supposed to be a dash, even though there aren't dashes in the book. If that's right, then the book would seem to be saying that the average temperature in the first half of the month was 51 to 65; that is, the average lowest-temperature-of-the-day was 51, and the average highest-temperature-of-the-day was 65. And for the second half of the month, the average was 59 to 66.
posted by John Cohen at 7:05 PM on March 4, 2015
posted by John Cohen at 7:05 PM on March 4, 2015
Link to NYC newspaper archives for 1838. Searchable and free.
posted by vitabellosi at 6:19 AM on March 5, 2015
posted by vitabellosi at 6:19 AM on March 5, 2015
Building on the work of John Cohen above, pg 104 indicates rainfall for the month of May in 1938 at Erasmus Hall (in Brooklyn) to be "4,54" which, I'm pretty sure means 4.54 inches in the month of May.
This corroborates the last column that John Cohen couldn't read, as it says "Rain Gauge" and reads at 4.54. So we know that it rained 4.54 inches in May, and there were 6.5 days in that month during which it was rainy.
This still says nothing about the particular day of May 23rd, but the picture is becoming clearer. (Or rainier?)
I also checked the NCDC website, downloaded the daily weather csv file for all of 1838, and found that they don't have any daily data for the US at all. So that's not helpful.
While crazy with stars's link to the NCDC metadata does turn up several stations that have data back that far, I'm pretty sure they only have non-daily data (that is, annual or monthly). I did my due diligence in trying to find daily data from 1838, and found none.
posted by cmchap at 8:41 AM on March 5, 2015
This corroborates the last column that John Cohen couldn't read, as it says "Rain Gauge" and reads at 4.54. So we know that it rained 4.54 inches in May, and there were 6.5 days in that month during which it was rainy.
This still says nothing about the particular day of May 23rd, but the picture is becoming clearer. (Or rainier?)
I also checked the NCDC website, downloaded the daily weather csv file for all of 1838, and found that they don't have any daily data for the US at all. So that's not helpful.
While crazy with stars's link to the NCDC metadata does turn up several stations that have data back that far, I'm pretty sure they only have non-daily data (that is, annual or monthly). I did my due diligence in trying to find daily data from 1838, and found none.
posted by cmchap at 8:41 AM on March 5, 2015
Response by poster: Are you looking for quantitative information like high/low temperature or whether it rained?
Temperature would be great, but "sunny", "cloudy", "rainy" would do just fine. I'm attempting to add color to the story of immigrants who stepped off the boat in NYC on that particular day.
posted by John Borrowman at 1:31 PM on March 5, 2015
Temperature would be great, but "sunny", "cloudy", "rainy" would do just fine. I'm attempting to add color to the story of immigrants who stepped off the boat in NYC on that particular day.
posted by John Borrowman at 1:31 PM on March 5, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Bee'sWing at 4:27 PM on March 4, 2015