The weather of 1740, the coldest year  in central Europe in 600 years

Brönnimann, Stefan; Filipiak, Janusz; Chen, Siyu; Pfister, Lucas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2219-2024

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2219-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2219-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 10

Research article

|

07 Oct 2024

Research article |

| 07 Oct 2024

The weather of 1740, the coldest year in central Europe in 600 years

Stefan Brönnimann, Janusz Filipiak, Siyu Chen, and Lucas Pfister

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/cp-20-2219-2024-supplement

Data sets

ModE-RA - A global monthly paleo-reanalysis of the modern era (1421 to 2008) V. Valler, et al. https://www.wdc-climate.de/ui/entry?acronym=ModE-RA

Cold-season northern hemisphere temperature field reconstructions for 1701-1905 L. Reichen, et al. https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.934288

Temperature T. J. Osborn, et al. https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/

Subdaily, daily and monthly weather data for the year 1740 Stefan Brönnimann https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25879186

Short summary

The year 1740 was the coldest in central Europe since at least 1421. New monthly global climate reconstructions, together with daily weather reconstructions, allow a detailed view of this climatic event. Following several severe cold spells in January and February, a persistent circulation pattern with blocking over the British Isles caused northerly flow towards western Europe during a large part of the year. It was one of the strongest, arguably unforced excursions in European temperature.