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A thermometer in Ishpeming registered a bone-chilling 34 below zero on February 28, 1884.  This low a temperature was common during the mid-1880s. 

These cold years were exacerbated by the explosion of Krakatoa in 1883.  Krakatoa is a volcano located on a small island in Indonesia off the west coast of Java (Image 1 above).  After 200 years of inactivity, the volcano came to life in May 1883, culminating in a series of four catastrophic explosions in late August.  The last of the explosions was heard 3,000 miles away.  The total energy released during the cataclysm was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT.  By way of comparison, the atomic blast at Hiroshima released energy equivalent to 20 kilotons of TNT.  That is 200,000,000 tons vs. 200,000 tons! 

The ash released from the volcano rose 50 miles into the atmosphere and plunged the area within a 50 mile radius of the crater into darkness for three days.  The estimated 11 cubic miles of material ejected into the stratosphere began circling the earth; it would do so for the next few years.  The “volcanic dust veil” acted as a solar radiation filter, lessening the amount of sunlight reaching the earth.  The veil reduced global temperature an estimated 1.2 degrees Celsius.   It also led to spectacular sunsets in higher latitude locations, including Upper Michigan. 

Newspaper articles in January 1884 and again in October 1884 mentioned the “extraordinary sunset phenomena caused by…volcanic dust.”  The October mention noted, “The sunsets have been as red for the past week as they were during the latter part of last winter.”  In mid-November, a reporter noted that “the sunrises have been worth seeing…the last three or four mornings.” 

The dust also helped lower temperatures.  In Marquette, temperatures in 22 of 24 months were below normal following the eruption.  The greatest departures from normal occurred during the winter months. 

January 1884 came in more than 6 degrees below the long-term average.  In late January that year, the temperature plunged to 47 degrees below zero in Republic.  The Ishpeming reporter observed that “the atmosphere was almost frozen solid” on January 24, 1884.  At the month’s end, an observer in Marquette declared:  “The first twenty-six days of January will bear comparison for steady cold with any period of equal length of which there is any record.” 

February was even colder: over 7 degrees below average.  March began cold but then an extended warm spell settled in.  It rained all day on March 11.  The rain turned area roads into a quagmire of mud and water, ruining sleighing.  By the end of March, Escanaba reported “some of the pleasantest weather that was ever turned out.”  At Sault Ste. Marie, the mild weather gave the winter-bound residents visions of “the smoke from some incoming steamer” about ready to come around the bend.  This was only illusion, however.  Despite the “soft weather,” The Menominee Herald stated the ice on Green Bay was “as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar” the third week of March. 

The relative warmth brought out wheeled vehicles.  “Everything was running on wheels” in Negaunee from March 20 to April 14, 1884.  Then a two-day snowstorm brought out the runners until the last week of April.  After the storm, it was a disagreeable spring. 

The light keeper at Ontonagon claimed “the entire length of April was a reverse of March” at his location.  He noted cold, wintry weather deep into the fourth month.  On April 26, a south to southwest wind finally moved the ice “off shore a short distance for the first time.”  However, the cold spring weather continued, and on the first day of May he could still observe ice on the lake “as far as the eye can see.”  He recorded ice along the shore in Ontonagon as late as May 19. 

A diarist in Negaunee chronicled the more notable cold events of spring 1884: “April 28^th, Cold and Snow; May 2^nd, slight snow flurry; May 13^th and 15^th, snow flurrys; May 27^th Pretty cold, ice formed and overcoats worn with comfort.”