ORIGINAL PAPER
European floods during the winter 1783/1784: scenarios
of an extreme event during the ‘Little Ice Age’
Rudolf Brázdil & Gaston R. Demarée & Mathias Deutsch & Emmanuel Garnier &
Andrea Kiss & Jürg Luterbacher & Neil Macdonald & Christian Rohr &
Petr Dobrovolný & Petr Kolář & Kateřina Chromá
Received: 7 January 2009 /Accepted: 23 June 2009 /Published online: 29 July 2009
# Springer-Verlag 2009
Abstract The Lakagígar eruption in Iceland during 1783
was followed by the severe winter of 1783/1784, which
was characterised by low temperatures, frozen soils, icebound
watercourses and high rates of snow accumulation
across much of Europe. Sudden warming coupled with
rainfall led to rapid snowmelt, resulting in a series of
flooding phases across much of Europe. The first phase of
flooding occurred in late December 1783–early January
1784 in England, France, the Low Countries and historical
Hungary. The second phase at the turn of February–March
1784 was of greater extent, generated by the melting of an
unusually large accumulation of snow and river ice,
affecting catchments across France and Central Europe
(where it is still considered as one of the most disastrous
known floods), throughout the Danube catchment and in
southeast Central Europe. The third and final phase of
flooding occurred mainly in historical Hungary during late
March and early April 1784. The different impacts and
consequences of the above floods on both local and
regional scales were reflected in the economic and societal
responses, material damage and human losses. The winter
of 1783/1784 can be considered as typical, if severe, for the
Little Ice Age period across much of Europe.
1 Introduction
Recent floods have caused large parts of Europe to reevaluate
flood risk, as several high-magnitude flood events
have occurred during the last two decades, such as July
R. Brázdil (*) :P. Dobrovolný :P. Kolář :K. Chromá
Institute of Geography, Masaryk University,
Kotlářská 2,
611 37 Brno, Czech Republic
e-mail: brazdil@geogr.muni.cz
G. R. Demarée
Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium,
Ringlaan 3,
1180 Brussels, Belgium
M. Deutsch
Saxonian Academy of Sciences in Leipzig,
Karl-Tauchnitz-Straße 1,
04107 Leipzig, Germany
E. Garnier
Laboratory of the Sciences of the Climate and the Environment
(UMR CEA-CNRS), CE Saclay, Orme des Merisiers,
F-91 191 Gif-sur-Yvette and UMR-CNRS CRHQ,
University of Caen,
Caen, France
A. Kiss
Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics,
University of Szeged,
Egyetem u. 2,
6722 Szeged, Hungary
J. Luterbacher
Department of Geography, Justus-Liebig University,
Senckenbergstrasse 1,
35390 Giessen, Germany
N. Macdonald
Department of Geography, University of Liverpool,
Liverpool L69 7ZT, UK
C. Rohr
Department of History, University of Salzburg,
Rudolfskai 42,
5020 Salzburg, Austria
Theor Appl Climatol (2010) 100:163–189
DOI 10.1007/s00704-009-0170-5
1997 and August 2002 in Central Europe (e.g. Bronstert
et al. 1998; Kundzewicz et al. 1999; Matějíček and Hladný
1999; Ulbrich et al. 2003a, b); November 1998 and March
2001 in Hungary and the Ukraine (Szlávik 2003a, b, c);
May/June 1999, July 2005 and August 2007 in Switzerland
(Bezzola and Hegg, 2007; KOHS 2007; Jaun et al. 2008;
Schmutz et al. 2008); October/November 2000 and July
2007 in England and Wales (Marsh 2007; Marsh and
Hannaford 2007), events that have caused loss of human
life and considerable material damage. Recent global
warming is very likely caused by anthropogenic activity
(Solomon et al. 2007), which may increase the frequency
and severity of flood events in the future (e.g. May et al.
2002; Milly et al. 2002; Christensen and Christensen 2003;
Parry et al. 2008). The study of historical flooding with
respect to meteorological causes, frequency, severity and
human impacts provides important information in developing
future flood risk management strategies (Brázdil et al.
2005b, 2006b), with historical hydrological analysis increasingly
applied in development planning (e.g. England
and Wales; PPS 25 2006).
Investigations of historical floods have concentrated on
the analyses of long-term flood series (e.g. Brázdil et al.
1999, 2005a; Pfister 1999; Tol and Langen 2000; Sturm
et al. 2001; Benito et al. 2003, 2008; Jacobeit et al. 2003;
Mudelsee et al. 2003, 2006; Glaser and Stangl 2004;
Wanner et al. 2004; Barriendos and Rodrigo 2006; Böhm
and Wetzel 2006; Cyberski et al. 2006; Macdonald et al.
2006; Rohr 2006) or the study of individual cases of
extreme flooding (e.g. Fügner 1995; Militzer et al. 1999;
Deutsch 2000; Tetzlaff et al. 2001; Deutsch and Pörtge
2002; Brázdil et al. 2006a; Bürger et al. 2006; Thorndycraft
et al. 2006). The meteorological and hydrological characteristics
of severe floods are normally analysed and extent of
flood damage assessed in relation to loss of life and
material damage. Previous studies have focused on the
floods of February 1784 at sites in Germany (Glaser and
Hagedorn 1990; Heuser-Hildebrandt 2005), the Czech
Lands (Elleder and Munzar 2004; Brázdil et al. 2005a),
Belgium and its surrounding regions (Demarée 2006) and
more generally in Western and Central Europe (Munzar et al.
2005; Kolář 2008), but little consideration has been given
to the cause, mechanisms and impact at a European scale.
Developing on the studies outlined above, this paper
concentrates on the detailed analysis of floods across
Europe during the severe winter of 1783/1784. The
meteorological and hydrological information for this period
is analysed with respect to weather variations, daily weather
and sea level pressure patterns. The paper considers floods
occurring in Western and Central Europe from December
1783 to April 1784 and their related impacts on indigenous
populations. Finally, our results are discussed in relation to
long-term climatic variability.
2 Hydrometeorological data
A network of meteorological stations, ranging from Greenland
to Rome and from La Rochelle (France) to Pyschminsk
(the Ural Mountains), was established by the Societas
Meteorologica Palatina in 1780 under the guidance of Karl
Theodor, the elector of the Palatinate, providing a valuable
series of records for the winter of 1783/1784. All stations
used standardised instruments and made their observations
according to the regulations issued by the Society (e.g.
observing times at 0700, 1400 and 2100 hours mean local
time), with the observations published annually for 1780–
1792 in the Ephemerides of the Society (for more details, see
Traumüller 1885 and Kington 1974).
Other important meteorological networks operating in
the 1780s include the network of the Société Royale de
Médecine established in 1776 in Paris, with a network that
extended beyond the borders of France (Kington 1970). A
meteorological network of 21 stations in Bavaria was
operated by the Bavarian Academy of Science in Munich
under the direction of Franz Xaver Epp (Society of Jesus
(SJ)) (Lüdecke 1997), with several stations from the
Bavarian network also active in the Mannheim network
(for an overview of meteorological stations making weather
observations in the 1780s, see Kington 1988).
Hydrological measurements were limited during this
period, with a small number of sites recording water levels
on stage-boards; for example, measurements are available
for the Danube in Vienna-Tabor from 1 January 1784. The
Vienna-Tabor measurements were made under the direction
of the K. K. Wasserbau-Administrator Jean-Baptiste Bréquin
(1712–1785) and were published in the Wiener Zeitung until
his death in January 1785 (Schönburg-Hartenstein and
Zedinger 2004). Water-level measurements of the River
Danube at Buda are available for the studied period as they
were published in the Ephemerides of the Societas Meteorologica
Palatina; however, from 20 December 1783 until 9
April 1784, no information was recorded as a result of drift
ice on the river.
Meteorological and hydrological measurements can be
complemented by direct and proxy data derived from a
variety of documentary sources (e.g. Brázdil et al. 2005b,
2006b and references therein), including:
1. Annals, chronicles, memory books and memoirs
Documentary accounts record in varying degrees of
detail the course of the 1784 floods, along with the direct
impacts and consequences to local populations. For
example, a memory book kept in the rectory at Počaply
on the River Elbe in Bohemia described the flood in the
following way (Kaněra 1900, pp. 205–206): “On the 30
December 1783 the Elbe froze in such a way that by
morning [31 December] it was possible to walk over the ice
164 R. Brázdil et al.
and on the 28 February [1784] at midnight the ice started to
break, with a terrible crack. At approximately 5 a.m. the ice
moved and went away without causing damage. But at 5 p.m.
the water rose so fast, that in half an hour it rose at the rectory
up to the height of 2 ells [156 cm] and rose further until
11 p.m. It achieved a height of 3 ells 8 inches [254 cm] in
the rectory and remained in this level up to the evening of
the following day [29 February] … A mass on the Sunday
[29 February] could not be provided because the water in
the church was 2 ells [156 cm] high …” Writers sometimes
compared the 1784 flood with other events; for example, in
Western Europe with the 1740 flood: “It results from it that
the water level was about 11 feet and a few inches [more
than 340 cm] higher than in 1740.” (Thelen 1784); “At 9
o’clock (after reports from Cologne) it stood 17 feet
[518 cm] above the level of 1740.” (von Berger 1784). On
the River Pegnitz in Nürnberg, it was compared to the
catastrophic flood at the end of the 1595 winter (Nonne
1784; Will 1784).
2. Weather diaries
The contents of weather diaries vary but normally
include daily visual weather records, sometimes combined
with early instrumental measurements and descriptive
accounts of extreme or unusual events, such as floods and
their devastating consequences. Several such diaries exist in
France, for example, the diary of the bookseller Hardy
(Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms 6680-6677), which
contains ~90 hydrometeorological readings between 1
December 1783 and 31 March 1784. A police lieutenant’s
weather diary from Nancy Dorival (Library of Nancy, Ms
1310–1323) provides a valuable testimony for Lorraine
(bisected by the River Moselle); as the owner of a
thermometer and a barometer, he devoted over 15 pages
of his diary to the winter 1783/1784, including observations
concerning the number of freezing days, presence of snow
and high water levels relative to buildings. In Timişoara
(Romania), J. C. Klapka, a royal pharmacist of Moravian
origin recorded pressure and temperature during the winter
of 1783/1784 (Eötvös Loránd University Library, no. E 40).
S. Benkö (1794), a doctor in Miskolc (Hungary) provides
an account of the weather and flood events during the
winter of 1783/1784 in his diary.
3. Correspondence (letters)
Correspondence often contains information concerning
the views or thoughts of an individual, including flood
events that occurred in their region; they often include a
description of the weather and resulting damage. This is
particularly important in rural regions where alternative
sources are often absent (Macdonald et al. 2009). In several
cases, letters were inserted into newspaper reports, a
common practice across much of Europe in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. The Wiener Zeitung (28 February
1784, no. 17, p. 411) reported heavy snowfall based on
letter from Spišská Sobota in central Slovakia from 14
February: “Quite recently the snow fell so frequently that a
neighbour had to open an exit from the house. The violent
storm wind that has raged uninterruptedly for three days
and threatened every moment the roofs of the houses has
finally died down without having caused considerable
damage in our area. The sadder is the news that we
received from other areas. People say that in Stoß [Štós], a
village at the border between the Zips [Spiš] and Abaujwarer
[Abov] County, the upper half of the city tower collapsed
and brought by this much damage to other houses and to the
people. At Joß [Jasov], a place in the last named County,
many houses were partly ruined and their roofs were taken
away. With fear one sees now everywhere approaching a
sudden thaw in the weather.”
4. Special prints
On the occasion of disastrous floods, special newssheets
or booklets were printed and distributed. In many cases,
booklets detailing the contemporary flood event also
provide comparison to previous floods, with the intention
of informing and therefore reducing the potential consequences
of similar future floods. For example, booklets
published by Thelen (1784) and an unknown author
(Anonymous 1784a) describe the severity of the winter
and extent of flooding in Cologne, Germany. A poem
describing the catastrophic flooding at Meißen (River Elbe)
was published by Thiele (1785), with an anonymous author
(1784b) also providing a detailed depiction of flooding in
the Elbe catchment.
5. Official economic records
Economic records provide data collected in connection
with any economic activity or procedure which relates to
the flooding; examples include expenditure for the reparation
of bridges and footbridges, buying material for repairs,
financial assistance to the affected and applications for tax
abatement on the grounds of damage suffered. For example,
on 8 March 1784, the municipal of Gebesee (near Erfurt,
Germany) reported to the local board in Tennstedt the
disastrous situation of the dykes near the River Gera
following the floods of late February (District-Archive
Sömmerda, Gebesee A, no. 888). In Hungary, information
concerning the 1784 flood events appeared as separate
applications for help, or in requests for tax reductions (e.g.
Érd: Fejér County Archives, IV-A-73: F 51 no. 172, 501/
1784) or were systematically included in town/municipal/
regional protocols (e.g. Banat Protocols: Hungarian National
Archives, A 101). In France, engineers responsible for
managing the ship canal linking the Mediterranean Sea with
the Atlantic Ocean recorded “major events” at almost a daily
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 165
frequency (Archives of the Canal du Midi, liasse 663).
Instrumental data (temperature, rainfall) and descriptive
accounts document the freezing and intermittent flooding
of rivers and canals near Toulouse, Béziers and Trèbes
throughout the winter of 1783/1784. The Municipal Acts
record all cases involving decisions made by town councillors,
which often include details of economic and societal
impacts resulting from the extreme weather conditions.
Similar cases were recorded in Hungary where floods and
the waterworks of major rivers were systematically
catalogued, e.g. the Mureş flood event (Hungarian National
Archives, C 127, Vol. 2. 60).
6. Newspapers and journals
Newspapers and journals provide some of the most
important documentary information, as they describe the
courses, causes and impacts of the floods and often include
a detailed enumeration of the damages. For example,
Berger (1784) reported an “ice flood” in the journal
Dreßdnische Gelehrte Anzeigen auf das Jahr 1784;
similarly, Ursinus (1784) described in the same journal
the 1784 flood and compared this event with other extreme
floods in the River Elbe. The Wiener Zeitung, which
appeared twice a week, included not only numerous reports
on heavy rain, floods and cold weather related to Austria,
Bohemia, France, Germany, historical Hungary, Italy,
Portugal, Russia and Spain but also instrumental meteorological
and demographic data from Vienna (Fig. 1).
Similarly, in France, the Journal de Paris reported daily
the water level observed at the bridge de la Tournelle, while
the Gazette de France reported on the rigours of the winter
and the extent of flooding in Paris, across France and in
other European cities.
7. Pictorial documentation
Several contemporary pictures express the situation
during the 1784 floods (for Meißen, see Förster 2001; for
Würzburg, see Glaser 2001; for Prague, see Brázdil et al.
2003 and for Vienna, see Strömmer 2003). Careful
consideration must be given to the use of pictures, as they
may reflect an author’s imagination, experience or perception,
rather than an accurate depiction of an event (Fig. 2).
Fig. 1 Pages from the Wiener Zeitung with reports detailing the
extreme hydrometeorological events during the winter of 1783/1784:
left hydrometeorological data (air pressure, temperature, wind, water
level) for Vienna-Tabor (17 January 1784, no. 5, p. 93); right
description of the thaw weather and its consequences for Vienna (28
February 1784, no. 17, p. 409)
166 R. Brázdil et al.
8. Sources of religious content
The 1784 flood was used in several sermons by priests
as an example of the Lord’s punishment to the people; for
example, the priest Heinrich Coenen saw ‘the misery
experienced by the people of Mülheim on the Rhine in
the time of this flood not as a mere coincidence, or as an
unavoidable natural event, but openly claimed that it was a
deserved punishment for their sins. The Lord has punished
them, but will cease to punish them if they live along the
rules of the [Catholic] religion’ (Coenen 1784). Other
similar examples are the sermons of the priests Aloys Merz
(1784) from Augsburg, Christian Wilhelm Demler (1784)
from Jena and Johann Gottlob Hartmann (1784) from the
village of Eutzsch, near Wittenberg (River Elbe).
9. Stall-keepers’ and market songs
The horrors of the disastrous floods became a dramatic
topic in stall-keeper and market songs; an example is the
stall-keepers’ song describing the 1784 flood in Prague and
Bohemia (Truchlivá novina 1784).
10. Chronogramme
Chronogrammes were common in eighteenth century
Western and Central Europe and were frequently written in
Latin or German verse or prose to commemorate events. In a
chronogramme, specific letters are interpreted as a roman
numeral (in capital letters or in bold) and indicate the year of an
event. For example, a Latin chronogramme about the catastrophic
February 1784 floods comes from the town of Linn
near Krefeld (Germany) and reads as: E*X*T*V*BERATO
RHENO *LI*NNA PER *C*RE*V*E*LDI*A*M* PANE
ET NA*VI*B*V*S *LI*BERATA EST [with the Rhine
flooded, Linn has been liberated with bread and ships by way
of Krefeld] (Creutz 1924–1925).
11. Early scientific papers and communications
The severity of the 1784 floods resulted in several papers
detailing their occurrence, meteorological causes and
impacts. A direct response of the 1784 floods was the
publication by Christian Gottlieb Pötzsch in Dresden of an
extended flood chronology for the River Elbe, based on
historical sources from Bohemia and Germany (Pötzsch
1784). A number of reports concerning the 1784 floods are
included in the compilation by Weikinn (2000).
12. Epigraphic sources
The water levels reached during the 1784 floods were
marked (chiselled, carved or drawn) on to buildings, bridges,
gates etc. across Europe (for example, the “Schiffervorstadt”
in Pirna, Germany). Watermarks should be assessed for their
originality but provide valuable information on flood extent
and level (a detailed discussion of epigraphic records is
provided by Deutsch et al. 2006; Munzar et al. 2006;
Macdonald 2007), particularly when estimating past flood
discharges (for Prague, see Novotný 1963).
3 Weather in the winter 1783/1784 in Europe
3.1 Weather patterns in Europe
Fluctuation in daily temperature and precipitation (Fig. 3)
are documented for Central England in the diary of Thomas
Barker (precipitation and weather descriptions) and the
Fig. 2 Restoration of Charles Bridge in Prague, damaged during the flood on 28 February 1784 (K. Salzer, copperplate engraving, Museum of
the City of Prague, catalogue no. 1.324)
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 167
Central England Temperature Series (Parker et al. 1992)
and for sites across Europe from the stations of the Societas
Meteorologica Palatina (Ephemerides Societatis Meteorologicae
Palatinae 1785, 1786) in the cities of: Delft (the
Netherlands), Dijon (France), Tegernsee (Germany), Erfurt
(Germany), Prague (Bohemia) and Budapest (Hungary).
Despite shorter series for Delft and problems with some
observations (e.g. incomplete precipitation measurements in
Prague), mean daily air temperatures at these stations were
below 0°C for periods in December and during most of
January and a large part of February 1784. The intensity of
the negative temperatures across Europe increased in a
west–east direction, culminating in the lowest temperatures
in Central Europe during the first 10 days of January. The
long duration of low temperatures resulted in the freezing
of watercourses, such as the 118 cm thick layer of ice that
formed on the River Vltava in Prague. The frequent
snowfalls resulted in significant snow cover across much
of Europe, with maximum snow depths reaching 40 cm in
Belgium (Demarée 2006) and up to several metres in
Bohemia (with up to 7 m in upland areas and about 60 cm
in the lowlands) (Brázdil et al. 2005a). A sudden increase in
temperature coupled with intense rainfall resulted in
snowmelt and the breakup of river ice during the latter part
of February 1784, with positive daily temperatures prevailing
during March 1784 across much of Europe. In addition
to these hydrometeorological phenomena, strong winds were
reported for several parts of Western, Southern and East-Central
Europe, particularly the British, French, Spanish and Portuguese
Atlantic coastlines and also in the Adriatic Sea. Nevertheless,
this study will focus on the events related to floods.
3.2 Sea level pressure patterns
Reconstructions of atmospheric circulation have been
developed for specific North Atlantic–European regions
(see Lamb and Johnson 1966; Briffa et al. 1986, 1987;
Cook et al. 1994; Jones et al. 1999; Luterbacher et al. 2002;
Küttel et al. 2009). Reconstructed monthly sea level
pressure (SLP) fields from December 1783 to March 1784
and their anomalies with respect to the 1961–1990
reference period are shown in Fig. 4 (Luterbacher et al.
2002). The SLP fields are reconstructed statistically using
long and reliable station pressure series from different areas
of Europe. During December 1783 and January 1784, large
parts of Europe were influenced by high pressure conditions.
In January, the western Russian high pressure
connected with the Azores anticyclone. The corresponding
anomaly figures indicate above normal SLP over Northern
Europe and below normal SLP over the Atlantic connected
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1783 1784
1 2 3
Central England Lyndon
Delft Delft
DijonDijon
Airtemperature(°C)
Precipitation(%)
Fig. 3 Fluctuation of mean
daily temperatures and daily
precipitation totals for selected
meteorological stations in
Europe from 1 December 1783
to 31 March 1784. As different
units are used for precipitation
measurements, daily totals are
expressed as a percentage of the
precipitation total for 1 December
1783–31 March 1784: 1 snow, 2
rain, 3 mixed
168 R. Brázdil et al.
with anomalous easterly flow towards Central Europe. The
February and March 1784 SLP patterns are similar with a
weak Azores high and Western Russian high. The
corresponding anomalous SLP pattern for February 1784
points to above (below) SLP over Northern Europe
(Mediterranean). In March 1784, an anomalous northerly
to northwesterly flow towards Central Europe prevailed, a
result of positive anomalies in the west and negative values
over large parts of the continent.
4 Floods in the winter 1783/1784 in Europe
As large areas of Europe accumulated a significant
snowpack resulting from prolonged periods of temperatures
below freezing, during which watercourses and soils were
frozen, the potential for severe flooding increased. Sudden
warming accompanied with intense rainfall favourable for
the movement of ice flows on rivers and intense snowmelt
resulted in three phases of flooding across Europe: the first
at the turn of 1783/1784, the second at the end of February
1784 and third a month later at the end of March. The
spatial and temporal extents of these flood events are
discussed below.
4.1 Floods at the end December 1783–beginning January
1784
In southern France, December 1783 was very wet;
engineers of the Canal du Midi in Languedoc reported
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Airtemperature(°C)
Tegernsee Tegernsee
ErfurtErfurt
Prague Prague
BudapestBudapest
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1784178317841783
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Precipitation(%)
Fig. 3 (continued)
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 169
170 R. Brázdil et al.
heavy rainfall between 6 and 9 December, followed by
rising water levels in the rivers (Garonne and Orb), which
interrupted local shipping from 14 December. To the south in
Roussillon, the chronicle of the Cathedral St-Jean of
Perpignan (Departmental archives of the Pyrénées-Orientales,
1 J 163/2) refers to sustained rains and a disastrous flood that
broke through dykes on the River Tet between 13 and 20
December. Frosts arrived at the end of December with the
Canal du Midi frozen for 24 h on 30 December, followed at
the beginning of January 1784 with an episode of heavy rain.
The onset of cold weather in mainland Europe, a result
of high pressure at the end of December, corresponded to
warming in the British Isles caused by an inflow of warm
and moist air from the southwest, as evidenced in
reconstructed daily SLP fields from 30 December 1783 to
2 January 1784 (Fig. 5).
At the beginning of January 1784, the first floods
occurred in Western Europe (Fig. 6, part 1). The first flood
was recorded in Tadcaster (~15 km southwest of York) on 2
January, resulting in the destruction of a bridge, while a
flood in Thetford (~50 km northeast of Cambridge) caused
significant damage to the town, leading to the destruction of
the bridge as a result of the rapid rise in river level
following a sudden thaw. A similar account from the town
of Ely (~25 km north of Cambridge), describes severe
flooding resulting from a thaw, with residents obliged to
live in the upper floors (Public Advertiser, 09/01/1784,
Issue: 15482). Flooding in Ireland on the rivers Dodder (a
tributary of the River Liffey that enters the Irish Sea at
Dublin) and Avoca (at Arklow, ~65 km south of Dublin) on
2–3 January suggest that eastern Ireland suffered significant
flooding, with considerable loss of life, property and
material goods.
In mainland Europe, the Scheldt catchment (Fig. 6, part 2)
was affected by flooding at the beginning of January 1784 as
a consequence of snowmelt and ice movement, with flooding
recorded in the tributaries (Lys, Dender, Durme, Nete,
Fig. 5 Reconstructed daily SLP
fields in Europe from 30
December 1783 to 2 January
1784 (Kington 1988): H high,
L low. Isobars are drawn at 4
hPa intervals, with the 1012 hPa
isobar being marked ‘12’. Stippled
lines indicate fronts
Fig. 4 Monthly SLP (hPa) patterns (left) from December 1783 to
March 1784 in the Atlantic–European region and their anomalies
(right) with respect to the 1961–1990 climatology (Luterbacher et al.
2002). The figure is drawn with the KNMI climate explorer tool
(courtesy Dr. Oldenborgh)
R
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 171
Demer and Gete). At Louvain (Belgium) on the River Dijle,
flooding on 4 January 1784 resulted in houses and streets
being submerged to a depth greater than that witnessed in
20 years. In the neighbouring Meuse catchment, high water
was recorded on the frozen river at Maaseik on 27 December
1783, with reports from Dutsch Venlo describing the
breaking of ice on the River Meuse on 5 January 1784,
with damage to ships in the harbour and on the beach,
mainly in the area near Blerick (Demarée 2006).
In Paris, the River Seine started to freeze from 15
December; on 27–29 of December, snow fell in a
“prodigious quantity as we had not seen for a very long
time” preventing the movement of pedestrians and horsedrawn
carriages (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms
6680-6677). A sudden increase in temperature led to
snowmelt in early January, causing the River Seine to
flood, the waters rose 3 m above the normal level at the de
la Tournelle Bridge, raising fears in the press of a flood
comparable to the disastrous 1764 event (Fig. 7).
In Austria, the water level of the River Danube was
relatively high after heavy rainfall during December 1783.
According to the detailed weather reports of the Wiener
Zeitung, a period of extreme cold from 4–9 January 1784
with temperatures around −12.5°C during the day resulted
in ice covering the Danube to a depth of greater than two ft
in thickness (63 cm); the daily mean temperature remained
below zero for most of the period until late February.
Newspaper accounts from historical Hungary (Pressburger
Zeitung, 17–24 January 1784, no. 5–7, 18 February 1784,
no. 14; Magyar Hírmondó, 21–24 January 1784, no. 6–7
and Presspůrské Noviny, 23 January 1784, no. 7) and Vienna
(Wiener Zeitung, 17–24 January, no. 5–7) describe frosty
weather with large quantities of snow until 26 December
1783, when sudden rapid warming, accompanied by rainfall
and a mild south wind caused widespread flooding. The
greatest flood extent and material damage occurred on the
tributaries of the River Tisza (with an ice flood on the Upper
Tisza, Szamos/Someş, Körös/Criş, Maros/Mureş) and the
lower Danube at Novi Sad (present-day Serbia; Fig. 6, part
5). Along the River Someş, several settlements were flooded
and bridges destroyed. The conditions in the Mureş
catchment in central and southern Transylvania and on the
Fig. 6 Selected locations (with dates) and rivers (in dark blue) with recorded floods in December 1783–January 1784 in Western and Central
Europe, according to documentary sources
172 R. Brázdil et al.
southeastern Great Hungarian Plain (present-day western
Romania) were severe. Entire villages, numerous bridges
and large areas of cultivated land were washed away in the
valleys of the Apuseni, Poiana Rusca and Gurghiu Mountains
(southern Carpathians) with extensive inundation of the
lowlands, which subsequently refroze. Extensive damage
occurred in Radna and Lipova, where practically all the
houses were damaged or destroyed and three people died. In
Arad (Romania), the maximum inundation was reached on
31 December 1783–1 January 1784 with floodwaters
inundating the town and surrounding region. Even though
the flood waters dropped in level, they still remained within
the town and surrounding districts and subsequently refroze
as temperatures dropped in early January (Kiss et al. 2006).
4.2 Floods from February–early March 1784
After a long-lasting frosty period, a strong southwesterly
airflow led to an increase in temperature and heavy rainfall,
resulting in extreme floods over large parts of Western and
Central Europe; eastern Central Europe also experienced a
number of significant floods in early March (Fig. 8). The
severity of the flooding can be related to the accumulated
snowpack thickness and water content of the snow, rainfall,
catchment characteristics, orography and presence of river ice.
4.2.1 Floods in Western Europe
The first documented flooding of this period occurred on 31
January in southern France, where the flood waters of the
River Loira at Orleans washed away boats loaded with
wood and wine; the cities of Bordeaux and Perpignan were
also affected by this flood (McCloy 1941). In Britain, the
first flood was recorded on 5 February on the River Severn
in Worcester, with a letter published in the Public
Advertiser (14/02/1784, Issue: 15513) providing a valuable
insight into the weather during these months: “It is now
seven weeks since the rigour of the season set in here, in
which time the River Severn has been frozen up three
times, [a] circumstance never known here in the memory of
the oldest inhabitant. A thaw came on last Thursday [5
February], and on Friday [6 February] the river was by the
flood cleared of the ice in little more than one hour; but
before ten at night it was again frozen at the bridge, and the
river is now full to the tops of the banks and covered
entirely with ice near five miles.”
Contemporary documents suggest that warming began
on 21 February with a thaw, which is supported by data
from the Central England Temperature (CET) series (Parker
et al. 1992), though some regions of England document
earlier floods resulting from thaw, suggesting that significant
snowmelt may have occurred during daylight hours,
whilst evening temperatures reduced mean daily temperatures
below freezing. Generally, in Britain, little is
mentioned of flooding during this period, though the
severity of the weather is widely reported; the London
Chronicle (24/02/1784, Issue: 4263) contains a letter from
Edinburgh (February 21) providing a brief glimpse into the
severity of the weather in Scotland: “The river Clyde is so
filled with ice that there has been no communication
between Glasgow and Greenock by water these last seven
weeks. By accounts from the North we learn, that the storms
of snow are more severe than ever, so that the poor people are
in a very distressed condition for want of meal, and many of
the sheep and cattle are dying. In many places very liberal
contributions have been made for the relief of the poor.” The
extent of the societal impact of the severe weather may have
indirectly reduced the likelihood of floods being recorded.
In mainland Europe, the first flood occurred in central
France on 18–19 February with further flooding in northern
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Waterlevel(m) -20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
Temperature(°C)
1 2 3
December January February March April
29/1: ice carried
by the Seine 1/2: the River
Seine
completely
frozen
4/3: evacuation of bridge
inhabitants
22/2: ice cracked
28/2: island
of the Cite
flooded
The River Seine frozen
1783 1784
´
Fig. 7 Fluctuations in daily
mean temperatures and the
water level measured at the de la
Tournelle Bridge on the River
Seine in Paris from 1 December
1783 to 14 April 1784: 1 water
level, 2 temperature, 3 day with
snowfall
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 173
France a day later (Fig. 8, part 2). In the Loira catchment,
the towns of Orleans, Blois and Tours suffered considerable
damage with the destruction of flood walls and large areas
submerged under water. In Evreux on the River Iton, water
levels recorded a height of 6 ft [183 cm] on 24–25
February. In Caen on the River Orne (Normandy), water
is described as running through the streets for 8 days, with
the floods described as “crétine” or “crétinous”, meaning a
combination of heavy rainfall and high tide, which elevated
the river level and resulted in the flooding of the city and its
surrounding area (Garnier 2007a). At Amiens on the River
Somme (northern France), flooding from 24 February
increased the water level by up to 12 ft [365 cm] and
caused extensive damage. During the following days,
floods occurred in eastern France, with the greatest material
damage in the region of Nancy and Méty, in the Mosel
catchment (McCloy 1941).
The River Seine in Paris was frozen on 1 February
(Fig. 7), with 18 cm of snow falling on 8 February alone.
The degradation of the weather during the winter affected not
just humans but also the wildlife, with wolves recorded around
Paris on 18 February. Warming caused rapid snowmelt, and
according to the Journal de Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale de
France, Ms 6680-6677), the River Seine on 20 February was
90 cm above its usual level; by 25 February, it reached 4 m
with valley floor villages flooded, and on 28 February, the Ile
de la Cité (the heart of Paris) was submerged, with the river
level to 5.40 m. On 29 February, the flooding became more
violent, and on 2 March, it rose to a height of 5.70 m. Two
days later, when the level reached 6 m, town councillors
decided to evacuate the inhabitants on the bridges Notre Dame
and Marie where traffic was already prohibited; the flood
waters disrupted the supply of provisions into Paris, particularly
wheat and wood. The Journal de Paris on 6 March
(Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms 6680-6677) describes
an ebb tide and discusses in detail the disaster that struck the
town of Evreux in Normandy, located downstream of the
River Seine. On 15 April, the same newspaper proclaimed
Fig. 8 Selected locations (with dates) with recorded floods at the turn of February–March 1784 in Western and Central Europe, according to
documentary sources
174 R. Brázdil et al.
the end of the threat, indicating that the Seine is ‘in his bed’
(Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms 6680-6677).
In Belgium (Fig. 8, part 2), the snow started to melt on
21 February 1784 and was followed several days later by
the breaking of the ice. The Kleine Gete in Orp-le-Grand
was the first to flood during the night of 22–23 February,
with the flood wave moving along the stream and
connecting with another flood wave from the Grote Gete,
which culminated at Tienen on 23 February. Between 25
and 27 February, Diest and Aarschot on the River Demer
were flooded, with descriptions from Diest stating that
access was possible only by horse with large carriages or by
boat, with the surrounding region submerged beneath the
flood waters so that it looked like the sea. The town of
Louvain was flooded by the River Dijle for the second time
in 1784 on 27 February, with considerable damage,
estimated at 200,000 gulden; further downstream, the lower
part of Mechelen was flooded on 29 February. No damage
occurred in Antwerp as a result of the broad river bed of the
Scheldt at its estuary to the North Sea (Demarée 2006).
The Meuse catchment (Fig. 8, part 2) had a slower
response following the rapid warming and rainfall when
compared to the Scheldt catchment; the flood wave lasted
for several days, with two peaks 2 to 3 days apart. While
the first peak was related to runoff from the Belgian part of
the catchment, the second resulted from the saturated
French part of the catchment. The towns of Dinant and
Namur as well as the area north of Maastricht were amongst
the worst affected. The chronicle from Maaseik dates two
peaks on 25 and 29 of February, with the last identified as
the fourth flood of the year. In Dutch Venlo, the River
Meuse rose from 21 to 25 February, when nearly the whole
town was under water, with a level only three inches
[7.5 cm] below that achieved in 1740 (Demarée 2006). The
situation was exacerbated by the pressure placed on the
protective flood walls as a result of ice barriers, which
elevated the flood waters above the levels expected from
river flow alone; their failure resulted in the flooding of the
extended area within and around the towns (Demarée 2006).
The general onset of warm weather before the late
February flood is well documented and evident from the
reconstructed daily SLP fields from 23 to 28 February
(Fig. 9). Deep cyclones north of the British Isles in the
North Sea generated a warm airflow from the Atlantic
Ocean to Western and Central Europe, conditions favourable
for rapid snowmelt and the melting of river ice, as
witnessed across much of Europe.
4.2.2 Floods in Central Europe
In the Main catchment (Germany; Fig. 8, part 3), a rightsided
tributary of the Rhine, warming started on 23
February accompanied by windy weather, snowmelt and
intense rainfall (daily precipitation totals are untypically
high with respect to this part of the year). On 27–28
February, thick ice on the river cracked and started to move;
its accumulation in several parts of the River Main channel
caused a sudden increase in water level, with maximum
levels observed from 28 February to 1 March. In Würzburg,
the flood culminated on 29 February, with widespread
damage resulting from high water but also the movement of
ice and drifting wood. The rapid increase in water level was
mirrored by a dramatic decrease in level as the ice dispersed
after 1 March (Glaser and Hagedorn 1990).
As flooding moved downstream from the tributaries into
the main channel of the rivers Rhine and Meuse (in the
Low Countries), the situation worsened as rivers remained
frozen, significantly reducing the capacity of the systems to
transport runoff generated within the upper catchments.
This intensified the pressure placed on flood defences as
river flow was impeded by ice barriers, which upon failing
resulted in significant damage (Demarée 2006).
Floods were also recorded in the Saale, Unstrut, Weiße
Elster and Werra catchments in late February (Fig. 8, part 3;
Deutsch and Pörtge 2002). The cold temperatures came to
an end on 23 February, followed by snowmelt and rainfall
on 24–25 February, which contributed to the breakup of the
river ice and subsequent flooding. On the River Saale near
Halle, the flood and ice-drift started on 29 February, with
the upper parts of the town flooded; the following day, it
had reached the saltsprings of the so-called “Hallmarket”,
and on 2 March, it achieved a catastrophic flood level when
boats were used to evacuate people and deliver food; by 4
March 1784, the flood waters started to recede (Weißenborn
1933). In Langensalza on the River Unstrut (a tributary of
the Saale), a catastrophic ice flood destroyed the protective
dams around the town (Town Archives Bad Langensalza,
library-no. 14). On the River Weiße Elster in Gera, ice
broke on 27 February, the high water levels combined with
ice flows (up to more than 1 m thick) destroying bridges
and dams; the flood waters also affected the villages of
Zwötzen, Milbitz and Thieschitz (Schirmer 2008). Flooding
was also recorded at Meiningen on the River Werra, where the
town was partly flooded, and horses from the royal stable at
Castle Elisabethenburg required evacuation (Hennebergischer
Altertumsforschender Verein 1834).
A sudden thaw started on 24 February as a result of a warm
southern wind in Bohemia and heavy rainfall (Fig. 8, part 4),
with over 40 mm falling on 26 February in Prague (according
to the Vienna measure, 41.7 mm fell or 42.9 mm according to
Paris standards). On 28 February, the River Vltava rose
533 cm above the normal level in Prague (Fig. 10), and ice
flows damaged the pillars of the Charles Bridge (a sentry-box
containing five soldiers located on the bridge collapsed into
the water), with further damage below Prague towards
Mělník. At Litoměřice on the River Elbe, the water level on
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 175
0:00 6:00 12:00 18:00 0:00 6:0012:00 18:000:00 6:00 12:00 18:00 0:00 6:00 12:00 18:00
27 Feb 28 Feb 29 Feb 1 Mar
1784
Waterlevel[cm]
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Annenská street flooded
houses near water flooded
184.54 m a.s.l.
ground level in front of the
Clam-Gallas palace in
Husova street 189.0 m a.s.l.
Husova street flooded
Fig. 10 Reconstruction of the
flood hydrograph for February
1784 at the Monastery of the
Knights of Cross, Prague
(corrected after Brázdil et al.
2005a)
Fig. 9 Reconstructed daily SLP fields in Europe from 23 to 28 February 1784 (Kington 1988): H high, L low. Isobars are drawn at 4 hPa
intervals, with the 1012 hPa isobar being marked ‘12’. Stippled lines indicate fronts
176 R. Brázdil et al.
29 February exceeded the level of the last disastrous flood of
15 February 1655 by 12 cm. On the same day, the flood level
culminated at Děčín and on 1 March in Dresden (Brázdil et al.
2005a). According to Elleder and Munzar (2004), runoff from
the lower and middle sections of the catchment was the most
important component in flood generation, with only a short
phase of insignificant snowmelt occurring within the mountain
region.
On the River Otava at Písek (Bohemia; Fig. 8, part 4),
the flood peaked on 27 February, with river ice causing
considerable damage to the bridge, mills and tanners’
crushers. In the evening of 27 February, the River Berounka
flooded the square at Beroun, whilst at Dolní Černošice, six
individuals were bankrupted as a result of the flood. On the
River Dyje in the Znojmo region (Moravia), floods
destroyed houses, bridges, protective dams and gardens
and took five human lives. On the River Jihlava, the ice
flows destroyed bridges in Pravlov and Dolní Kounice,
with many buildings, barns, bridges, dams and items of
farm equipment damaged in southern Moravia (Brázdil
et al. 2005a).
Melting of the unusually deep snow and additional
rainfall, although not as intense as in December, caused
prolonged floods and inundations in several parts of
historical Hungary. Pressburger Zeitung (10–13 March
1784, no. 20–21) and Banat Protocols (Vol. 2: 85r, 90v)
record floods in the Timiş, Bega/Begej and lower Mureş
catchments in mid-February (now northern Serbia and
western Romania), which continued for several weeks,
with low-lying areas flooded but without loss of human
life.
The situation along the River Danube (Fig. 8, part 4) was
severe as rapid snowmelt and intense rainfall in southern
Germany caused extensive flooding. In Vienna, daily
temperatures rose from below 0°C to 10°C on 25 and 26
February, which coupled with rainfall caused the rapid
(within hours) breaking of the river ice. According to the
water gauge in Vienna-Tabor, the River Danube water level
started to rise in the evening of 26 February, with the
steepest increase recorded on 29 February, and the river
level peaked on 2 March. During the night of 26–27
February, ice and floods destroyed numerous bridges in
Vienna and caused severe damage to a large number of
properties in the suburbs (now within the outer districts of
Vienna), such as Nussdorf to the north of the city centre.
The severity of the conditions on the local populace
worsened as temperatures again fell below 0°C on 29
February. The instrumental data from the water gauge at
Vienna-Tabor is at first glance misleading. The water level
reached its peak on the morning of 27 February (13 ft 9 in.;
429 cm) and stayed higher than 11 ft (335 cm) until the
morning of 29 February. During the day, the water level
decreased quickly and remained extremely low at 4 ft
(122 cm) for several days from 1 March onwards. The
explanation for these data are given in a report of the
Wiener Zeitung from 10 March 1784: “By unerring signs
one observes that on the 1st of this month, on the day of the
highest swell, the water at the ‘Schlagbrücke’ was about
11 ¼ inches [29 cm] higher than in the year 1768, at the
imperial and royal mint about 3 inches [8 cm], and at the
imperial and royal navigation office about 2 inches higher
[5 cm]. On the contrary, it stood at Tabor 2 feet and 9
inches [84 cm] lower than in the above-mentioned year.
The reason for this is that the water in the Danube canal
was spread more easily by breaking out frequently than in
the other Danube branches.”
Besides Vienna, the large cities of Linz and Krems and
the lowlands in the northeastern parts of Lower Austria were
hit by the ice and flood waters. As a result of the flood, high
water levels were recorded over the following 10 days for a
number of locations across present-day Austria.
Remarkably, no evidence of a major ice flood is recorded
along the Austrian tributaries of the River Danube. Both
newspapers and economic accounts (e.g. Accounts of the
bridge master: Municipal Archive of Wels) do not reflect
any extreme event or damage for the Salzach and lower Inn
Rivers (Salzburg, Upper Austria, Lower Bavaria), the River
Traun (Upper Austria), the River Enns (Styria, Upper and
Lower Austria) and the smaller southern tributaries of the
River Danube in Lower Austria. The water level in these rivers
may not have been high enough to cause thick ice; in addition,
the large lakes of the Salzkammergut lake district (Upper
Austria) were not covered with ice in early 1784, as the Wiener
Zeitung (25 February 1784, no. 16, p. 386) explicitly
describes the state of Lake Traunsee (Upper Austria).
Having received descriptions from the northwest
concerning the disastrous flood events, further suffering
was anticipated in the towns downstream on the River
Danube in historical Hungary (Fig. 8, part 4). In Bratislava
and its surroundings, after a small flood on 1–2 March, a
second and more destructive flood containing ice caused
the greatest damage, with at least three casualties, as
described in newspapers issued on 10 March (Pressburger
Zeitung and Magyar Hírmondó, no. 20). In the following
days, ice floods are documented in other towns such as
Győr and Komárno/Komárom, which was referred back to
in May as a “very extensive and dangerous ice flood”. The
flood recorded in the area of Pest and Buda occurred
between 7 and 13 March, with the highest level reached
during the night of 8–9 March, when the river was blocked
by ice flows (Pressburger Zeitung and Presspůrské Noviny,
13 March 1784, no. 21; Magyar Hírmondó, 24 March
1784, no. 23). Lower-lying parts of the three towns (Pest,
Buda, Óbuda) and some of the surrounding settlements
(Érd, Budafok, Tétény) remained submerged for a couple of
days, but compared to other, more significant flood events
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 177
of the century (e.g. 1775, 1799), no loss of human life or
significant damage in Pest and Buda was reported (Kiss
2007). A more dangerous situation developed to the south;
on 12 March and during the following days, the River
Danube ice started to crack, followed by a major ice flood
(ingens inundatio) which occurred in the area of Baja,
which “has not been observed for 15 years”, the water level
started to subside after 8 days (Historia Domus Bajensis in
Kapocs and Kőhegyi 1991). Although greatly feared,
according to the Pressburger Zeitung (20 March 1784, no.
23) and Magyar Hírmondó (31 March 1784, no. 25) no
flood event occurred at this time, with the accumulated ice
and water passing away without notable damage on the
rivers of the Tisza catchment.
4.3 Floods from late March–early April 1784
In the British Isles, little flooding was recorded during
March 1784. A single flood event was recorded on 8 March
in eastern England and was attributed to the ‘rainy and
windy weather’; this event is unlikely to reflect a wider
accumulation of snow and subsequent flooding in Britain as
the CET series records only 2 days after 21 February with
mean daily temperatures of below 0°C.
Further floods in mainland Europe were recorded at the
end of March 1784. This was the fifth flood to occur at
Namur (Belgium) on the Meuse and peaked on 21 March,
with the water level reached during this event the greatest
since 1740 (Demarée 2006). In the Czech Lands, a flood on
the Sázava on 28 March is described following snowmelt in
the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands (Elleder and Munzar
2004), but it was probably smaller than that recorded at the
end of February.
In historical Hungary, the River Danube and its
tributaries were again in flood at the end of March and at
the beginning of April as a direct consequence of snowmelt
and intense rainfall; floods were also recorded on several
rivers in the northern Carpathians and its foothills (Fig. 11).
According to reports in the Pressburger Zeitung and
Magyar Hírmondó, the River Váh flooded on 27 March
as a result of ice movement and snowmelt in the mountain
regions, with floods removing the bridge in Sereď. The
River Slaná caused considerable damage on 30 March in
Rožňava after intense rainfall; while snowmelt resulted in
flooding along the River Poprad in Spišská Sobota, Stráže
pod Tatrami and Poprad (present Slovakia). On the same
day, as a result of snowmelt and heavy rainfall, the River
Gyöngyös destroyed bridges and flooded cellars in the
town of Gyöngyös (Historia Domus Gyöngyösiensis:
Library and Archives of the Franciscan Order in Hungary,
VI. 5). In Miskolc, after repeated snowfalls and subsequent
snowmelt, flooding occurred on 2–3 April (Benkö 1794).
Floods are also recorded in several settlements at the
beginning of April on the River Tisza, in the region of
Szeged (Hungary). The lowland areas of the Timiş
(Romania) faced a long-lasting inundation in April as
recorded in the Banat Protocols (Vol. 1: 42v, 46r, 47r, 51r;
Vol. 2: 103v–104r, 109v, 114r). The meeting of the
Croatian parliament in Zagreb had to be postponed as a
result of flooding on the River Sava; a minor April flood
event in the lower Danube was also reported with the flood
waters remaining in the area of Baja until early May
Fig. 11 Selected locations (with dates) and rivers (in dark blue) with recorded floods at the end of March–beginning of April 1784 in Western and
Central Europe, according to documentary sources
178 R. Brázdil et al.
(Magyar Hírmondó, 28 April 1784, no. 32; 22 May 1784,
no. 39).
5 Impacts and consequences of the flood
High-magnitude flood events are often an important forcing
factor in the landscape; for example, the February 1784
flood on the River Main changed the river bed morphology,
while the river near Aue (Germany) undertook a lateral
movement of the river channel, with considerable quantities
of fluvial sediment deposited elsewhere within the catchment
(Glaser and Hagedorn 1990). The natural impacts of
such large floods though appear insignificant compared to
the human perception, its impact on society and human
activities.
Weichselgartner (2000) defines a severe flood as a social
event, as a result of the consequences concerning the whole
socio-economic system. Although based on documentary
evidence the 1783/1784 floods did not result in high human
losses, the inclement weather of the time caused a
significant number of deaths. The floods caused considerable
material damage in many places and had further
significant consequences on local populations.
The greatest impact within the British Isles was from the
severity of the winter, with numerous descriptions within
newspaper accounts of the time depicting scenes of
considerable suffering; “By a letter from Aberdeen we
learn, that the extremes of poverty and want again stare
them in the face. The storm, with little remission, has last
14 weeks, and a late harvest, like last, is expected to end in
ruin to thousands of families and individuals” (London
Chronicle, 27/03/1784, issue: 4277). The floods themselves,
although severe in places in 1784, were rarely
recorded as large floods within British river systems; of
greater impact were floods during the period 1770–1775,
with extreme floods recorded on a number of British rivers
(Macdonald 2006).
The different impacts and consequences of the floods
were documented in mainland Europe. The hospital at Caen
asked the king for his assistance because their income from
embroidery made by the patients was unable to meet the
costs associated with increased wheat prices, which rose in
six months from 28 to 45 pounds for a résal (117 litres).
The February 1784 floods in French Normandy put in peril
the entire regional economic fabric; for example, business
districts and industrial activities at Caen dependent on water
power were severely affected by frozen and then rising
waters. In the great draper centre at Bernay (Normandy),
nearly 198 spinning workshops were destroyed, with 70%
of the textile sector suffering some damage (Garnier
2007b). At Alençon, the damage was comparable and
caused extensive impoverishment to the workers; the
unemployed had no alternative but to take refuge in
workhouses.
Following the February 1784 floods, hygiene was
recognised as a serious issue by the authorities. Thus the
royal state, under the guidance of hygienists and doctors
published throughout the kingdom (France) a notice entitled
“Opinion on ways to reduce [the] unhealthy”. For the first
time, authorities were directly involved in recommending
hygienic practices and encouraged sanitation in the home,
with the aim of avoiding the spread of disease. The chemist
Antoine-Alexis Cadet de Vaux, in his position of Inspector
General of Public Health Matters in France, published on 16
March 1784 a booklet advising on means to diminish the
unhealthy impact on homes exposed to the inundations
(Cadet de Vaux 1784). He describes: “After the retreat of the
water, the houses that have been flooded become necessarily
insalubrious. They expose the people and the animals when
they return in the house without precautions to more or less
serious illnesses. And if all the inhabitants of a same place
experience this same influence, an epidemic results from it.”
The latter sentence was written in the spirit of the neoHippocratic
hypothesis, where considerable importance was
given to epidemics, their repeated occurrence and the
catastrophic consequences in the Kingdom of France. Cadet
de Vaux continued further “by suggesting washing the walls
and the floors immediately after the retreat of the water with
water from a well, a fountain or a river. This washing will
take away the viscous humidity which never dries or only
with difficulties. If necessary the whole operation must be
repeated three or four times. One must light a fire in the
chimney and if the room is large, one must light also several
stoves extending and multiplying the chimney pipes.”
Finally, he suggested several general measures for improving
public health, statements that can be viewed as a contribution
to the emerging policy of taking care of public health matters
by government; this policy was supported in France by the
foundation of the ‘Société Royale de Médecine’ in 1776/78
with its programme of undertaking medical-meteorological
observations (Demarée 2004).
In terms of assistance, private charity functioned
effectively in providing support, particularly the Catholic
Church. The archbishop of Paris purchased large quantities
of bread and distributed it freely to the poor, while priests in
the parishes of Paris undertook special collections. Symbolic
of the movement of ideas, even if it remained marginal, was
the mobilisation of Masonic lodges in Paris, as they gathered
money to assist disaster victims. Their example of solidarity
was followed shortly afterwards by the Italian actors of the
King of France in the form of a show for the poor.
Following the February–March 1784 floods in France, the
attitude of the royal state when faced with disaster changed;
the government had previously remained indifferent to the
plight of the people, but following the February–March
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 179
floods, the government decided to intervene with disaster
management. King Louis XVI gave for the first time a
decree on 14 March 1784 providing compensation to the
total cost of 3,000,000 pounds to disaster victims; this
corresponded to about 1% of the annual revenue of the
French monarchy (Le Roy Ladurie 2006; Garnier 2007a).
The authorities had originally committed to a considerable
misjudgement in the public perception of the winters
severity, when Queen Marie-Antoinette requested at the
end of December 1783 that she wished snow to be kept in
the Paris streets for her sledging; once aware of the potential
scandal, the queen donated 500 Louis d’or from her own
pocket to the aid of Parisians. Propaganda was a powerful
motivation for a monarchy engaged in a process of national
centralisation; with a pamphlet published and distributed
throughout the country commemorating the generosity of the
king on the occasion of the terrible floods that had afflicted
the country.
The authorities response to the February–March floods
in central Germany can be defined as short-term (about
2 weeks thereafter), medium-term (from about 2 weeks to
6 months) and long-term (from 6 months up to 2–3 years)
(Deutsch and Rost 2005). For the first two groups, the
following examples can be identified:
– Arrangements for the flood victims (for example,
official collections of money in Langensalza—see
Town Archives Bad Langensalza, library-no. 14;
collections of clothes, food and firewood in Pirna,
Dresden, Meißen etc.; organisation of benefit performances
in churches, theatres, restaurants and private
saloons; official collections in churches in the whole
Electorate of Saxony)
– Deployment of the army and/or special forces and
police units, whose primary task consisted of establishing
and maintaining order (prevention of looting etc.,
for example near the River Saale in Halle and in some
villages)
– Various orders with respect to hygiene (such as orders
for cleaning and disinfecting of the flooded houses)
– Official orders for repairing important buildings and
objects (bakeries, bridges etc.)
– Regulations on the orderly accounting and maintaining
of documents for all charitable operations
The long-term response to the floods included, for
example, drafting of emergency plans for future flood
events and the formation of special commissions at local
and governmental level to ensure improved protection
against such catastrophic floods in the future. One year
after the catastrophic flood, during the cold winter in 1785,
the elector of Saxony issued in February an order in which
people near the River Elbe would be informed of an
impending flood by canon signals (Poliwoda 2007). The
Saxonian authorities also took hygiene precautions, as the
town council of Dresden published a hygiene instruction in
April 1785 (for more examples and details on the long-term
responses to flooding in the Saxonian part of the River
Elbe, see Poliwoda 2007).
The reports of the Wiener Zeitung provide a vivid and
detailed insight into the socio-economic consequences of
the flooding in Austria, Bohemia, historical Hungary and
Germany. The most detailed reports concerned the situation
in Vienna on 29 February and the following days, when the
ice flood covered large parts of the districts on both the left
and right branches of the River Danube, in particular the
suburb of Leopoldstadt (currently district II in Vienna;
Wiener Zeitung, 3 March 1784, no. 18, pp. 438–439): “Still
sadder was the situation of the inhabitants in Leopoldstadt,
where all houses along the bank were filled with water. The
level of the water increased at many places until three feet
[95 cm] so that one couldn’t get [any] other way from one
place to another [except] by boat. It still rose the following
night considerably and what made this sad situation far worse
was the persistent cold weather removing the hope of a rapid
breaking up of the ice on the Danube River and increasing the
misery thoroughly. The misery was meanwhile, of course,
made more mild and bearable by all possible means in the
power of the government, which were arranged with great
wisdom and care but remained constantly enough tough for
the people, who were hit by the flood.”
In particular, the economic situation of the poor seems to
have been disastrous during the hard winter of 1783/1784,
both before and after the floods. The Wiener Zeitung contains
several reports of donations for the poor, presumably money,
but in one case also large amounts of wood. Donations are
recorded from members of the Habsburg family, by
aristocrats, by anonymous benefactors and by the church;
individuals also provided support, such as a medical doctor
in Vienna who offered to examine and cure the poor for no
charge. The dean of the parish church of Krems was even
honoured for his humanitarian efforts by the Emperor (Kinzl
1869). In Malá Strana, a district of Prague, the Order of the
English Misses opened their garden and built an additional
bridge to enable hundreds of people to escape the ice flood;
they also received ill people from the Institute for the poor
and cared for them over 12 days (Wiener Zeitung, 20 March
1784, no. 23, p. 578).
The Wiener Zeitung also contains detailed lists of people
who died in Vienna during the following weeks. The city
centre of Vienna and its suburbs (“Vorstädte”) were
inhabited by 209,121 people in 1783 (Weigl 2003). On an
average day, about 15–25 people died; on 7 January 1784,
during the peak of the early January frosts in Vienna, 53
people lost their lives. During the ice flood of late February
and during the following weeks, the average mortality did
not increase much (17–32 people died per day), suggesting
180 R. Brázdil et al.
that less people were killed by the ice flood than by the
extreme frost in early January (Fig. 12). The warning and
evacuation systems in Vienna during the ice flood seem to
have been relatively successful in reducing the loss of life.
Nevertheless, the Wiener Zeitung also reports that several
unidentified people were killed during the ice flood; they
were likely to have been homeless individuals or travellers:
“In February two male persons were found frozen to death
in the area of Dürnkrut in the so-called Ebersdorferfeld
(Lower Austria). One is about 40 years old, large, with a
long-shaped face, black short-cut hair, black eye-brows and
beard, wearing a Kopernitz coat, … The other is about
18 years old, large, with a round-shaped face, without
beard, black short-cut hair, … They seem to have come
from Moravia.” (Wiener Zeitung, 17 March 1784, no. 22,
pp. 660–661).
An indication of the severity of the late February–early
March ice flood in Vienna compared to Hungary is that,
according to a pamphlet published in 1789, a great amount
of money was collected in Pest town (Hungary) during
1784 to help the inhabitants of Vienna who were so
seriously affected by flood (Szabó Ervin Library, Budapest
Collection, B614/1/1789.2.11).
Based on numerous reports published in Pressburger
Zeitung (17–21 January 1784, no. 5–6; 18 February 1784,
no. 14), Magyar Hírmondó (24 January 1784, no. 7),
Presspůrské Noviny (23 January 1784, no. 7) and Wiener
Zeitung (24 January 1784, no. 7) as well as direct orders
written in the Banat Protocols (Vol. 2: 42r–43v, 57v), the
late December–early January flood was the most severe.
Regional and local authorities, the army, chamber officers
and county people provided a quick and affective response,
providing immediate help in both the form of wellorganised
community and private actions. For example,
the army under instruction from chamber and regional
officers in Timişoara (the centre of the former Banat region,
currently in western Romania), ferried a canon to Lipova
and Arad to break the ice; they also transported sufficient
food for the population of Radna (a town located in another
county—beyond their own responsibility). The actions of
local individuals responsible for rescuing people and
property were reported in great detail. In Arad during the
ice flood, the army evacuated several thousand people; as a
result of their actions, only three casualties were reported
during the late December ice flood. As a medium-term
consequence, local authorities and inhabitants in the most
endangered areas, such as the town of Lipova, were well
prepared in March for another flood, even though no
destructive flood occurred.
The long-term consequences of the 1783/1784 floods
can be identified in the lowland areas of the Rivers Mureş,
Timiş and Bega (Banat region, today in Serbia and
Romania), where according to the Banat Protocols (Vol.
1: 20r, 42v–51r, Vol. 2: 103r–114r), after a long-lasting
period with frequent inundations, several settlements
applied for a tax reduction on the basis of the damage
caused and inability to farm the surrounding lands; some
settlements were deserted with inhabitants moving to areas
less prone to flooding.
6 Discussion
The extreme winter of 1783/1784 and associated floods was
the first winter following the Lakagígar eruption in Iceland,
which significantly influenced the weather of Europe (e.g.
Stothers 1996; Demarée et al. 1998; Grattan and Pyatt
1999; Sadler and Grattan 1999; Demarée and Ogilvie 2001;
Oman et al. 2006). The previous summer (1783) was
notable for a dry fog; optical phenomena and heavy
thunderstorms and its weather was generally characterised
as dry and hot throughout Western Europe (Luterbacher
et al. 2004; Pauling et al. 2006). A significant increase in
human mortality in Iceland and the UK presumably
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Mortality
-20
-10
0
10
20
Temperature(°C)
January February March
Fig. 12 Temperatures at 2 p.m.
at the Vienna-Tabor water-gauge
station and mortality (people
dying per day) in Vienna
(smoothed by 5-day Gaussian
filter) from 1 January to 31
March 1784 (for data see Wiener
Zeitung; no mortality data
available for 22 February and
13–15 March 1784)
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 181
resulting from respiratory problems is noted (Grattan et al.
2003); parish registers of deaths between January 1783 and
April 1784 in France (Fig. 13) confirm the results of
Grattan et al. (2003), who identified an increase in mortality
from July to September (maximum in September for Lyon
and in October for Poitiers). In both cases, the demographic
toll directly attributable to frosts and flooding during the
winter of 1783/1784 was lower than the effects of the
volcanic eruption, as reflected in the occurrence of ‘dry fog’
reported from June 1783 across much of Western Europe.
The principal mechanism responsible during the Lakagígar
eruption in disturbing the climate is the injection into the
stratosphere of sulphur dioxide (SO2), altering the planetary
energy budget (Stevenson et al. 2003). As the energy budget
is perturbed, greater reflection of incoming radiation leads to
warming of the aerosol layer and cooling of the underlying
atmosphere, potentially resulting in the disturbance of the
climate. The Lakagígar fissure eruption of 1783–1784 lasted
for seven months releasing in excess of 15 km3
of magma
(Stevenson et al. 2003) and 122 Tg of SO2 (Highwood and
Stevenson 2003), with around 60% released during the first
6 weeks (Thordarson et al. 1996), with the ash cloud
reaching troposphere levels (~10 km over Iceland during the
summer). The year 1783 has been referred to as annus
mirabilis (Year of Awe or Wonder; Steinthorsson 1992), as
records throughout Europe often cite ‘dry fogs’ at ground
level and altitude (Stothers 1996); other recorders detail the
impressive sunsets throughout much of northern Europe
towards the end of 1783 (Grattan and Pyatt 1999). The
extreme cold of the winter of 1783/1784 was discussed by
Benjamin Franklin (1785) in an address to the Manchester
Literary and Philosophical Society, an indication from the
period that it was considered severe.
It is, furthermore, remarkable that the Lakagígar eruption
was also mentioned in the Wiener Zeitung in February 1784
but without drawing connections to the extreme weather
situation in the winter 1783/1784. A connection between
the remarkable occurrence of “fog” in summer 1783 and
“fog” during the snowfall in the winter was, however, seen
in an anonymous report from Klosterneuburg north of
Vienna (Strömmer 2003, p. 208): “The remarkable fog,
which had occurred in the last summer, was also clearly
observed in the winter of 1784, except on few days. It was
seen in winter during snowfall, as it was always seen in
summer during rainfall. From this coincidence we may
conclude easily that this special vapour, which had caused
extraordinary heat and disastrous thunderstorms in summer,
was also responsible for the extraordinary amount of snow
and extremely cold temperatures.”
Reconstructed temperature and precipitation patterns
from the winter of 1783/1784 (Luterbacher et al. 2004;
Xoplaki et al. 2005; Pauling et al. 2006) were evaluated
against the 1961–1990 reference period (Figs. 14 and 15).
Monthly temperature maps consistently show that a cold
anomaly extended over the greater part of Europe (Fig. 14).
In December, the cold anomaly generated a belt stretching
from the North Sea to southeastern Europe, while in
January, it moved to the northwest. In February, the cold
belt extended from France across Central Europe, but
negative anomalies were not as strong as in the other
months. In March, it moved again to the northeast and
across Northern Europe. Seasonal precipitation maps
(Pauling et al. 2006) were constructed for the winter of
1783/1784 (Fig. 15); for the greater part of the region
located to the north of the Alps, precipitation totals were
close to the 1961–1990 mean, whilst the British Isles and
the majority of France were significantly drier compare to
the 30-year mean.
The severity of the low temperatures experienced during
the winter of 1783/1784 can be placed into context using
early instrumental records and/or existing temperature
reconstructions (Fig. 14). The series of Central Europe,
calculated from eleven homogenised temperature series
(Central European Temperature series – CEuT) from
stations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Czech
Republic since 1760 (Dobrovolný et al. 2009) shows that
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A
1783 1784
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
J F M A M J J A S O N D J F M A
MortalityMortality
1783 1784
Lyon
Poitiers
Fig. 13 Monthly mortality in Lyon and Poitiers from January 1783 to
April 1784 (data: Archives Municipales de Lyon, 1G211; Archives
Municipales de Poitiers, 5 MI 1052-15). The Lakagígar eruption
began on 8 June 1784 and continued until February 1784, with the
majority of material ejected during 1783
182 R. Brázdil et al.
Fig. 14 Monthly temperature (°C) patterns (left) from December 1783 to March 1784 (Luterbacher et al. 2004; Xoplaki et al. 2005) in the
Atlantic–European region and their anomalies (right) with respect to the 1961–1990 climatology
European floods during the winter 1783/1784 183
January 1784 was the most severe on record, with a
temperature anomaly of −5.7°C with respect to the 1961–
1990 reference period. Very high temperature deviations
from the reference period, namely −4.0°C for February and
−3.7°C for December are also recorded, with the following
spring months of March (−2.2°C) and April (−3.2°C) also
notable. Thus, the probability of the occurrence of such low
winter temperatures (the winter anomaly was −4.5°C) has a
return period greater than 50 years if calculated from the
period 1760–2006. If we evaluate the severity of the 1783/
1784 winter within the context of the last 500-year CEuT
series (Dobrovolný et al. 2009), only 18 winter seasons
with such a low mean temperature have occurred since A.D.
1500.
The general pattern identified from the CEuT series can
be confirmed by data observed at individual stations; for
example, according to the Prague-Klementinum observations,
the 1783/1784 winter was the sixth coldest winter on
record (from the beginning of regular measurements in
1775) with January 1784 recording a mean temperature of
−8.8°C, the third coldest January recorded. If two-month
periods are considered, then December 1783–January 1784
is the seventh coldest and January–February 1784 the tenth
coldest period within the record (Brázdil et al. 2003). With
93 daily means below zero and 73 ice days (maximum
daily temperature below 0°C) from November to March,
the 1783/1784 winter season in Prague is ranked second in
severity (Kakos and Munzar 2000).
The extreme European winter floods occurred as a result
of a combination of long-lasting causative hydrometeorological
factors (severe frosts, freezing of the soil, extraordinary
thickness of ice on the watercourses and extreme
depths of snow cover) culminating in a sudden thawing, as
Fig. 16 Epigraphic marking illustrating the water level of 28
February 1784 (above the window of the Cochem water gauge on
the River Mosel, significantly exceeding all other recorded events;
photo Jiří Štrupl)
Fig. 15 Winter 1783/1784 precipitation (mm) patterns in the AtlanticEuropean
region (left) and their anomalies (right) with respect to the
1961–1990 climatology (data source: Pauling et al. 2006). The figure
is drawn with the KNMI climate explorer tool (courtesy Dr.
Oldenborgh)
184 R. Brázdil et al.
a result of the rapid onset of an increase in positive air
temperatures along with a strong southwesterly, later
northwesterly airflow and intense rainfall.
The evidence collected shows that the main flood phase
during February–March 1784 across Central Europe
belonged to the most disastrous events during the past
millennium. For example, Glaser and Hagedorn (1990)
estimated the return period of floods on the central reach of
the River Main as 400 years but between the tributaries
Saale and Tauber at 250 years and on the lower Main at
only 150 years. Epigraphic markings related to this event
were not exceeded by any other known flood in many
places, or they are among the highest recorded (Fig. 16); for
example, the water level of 857 cm from the River Elbe in
Dresden on 1 March 1784 was equivalent to the event of 16
August 1501 and was only exceeded by the event of 31
March 1845 (877 cm); whilst at Eibelstadt on the River
Main, the 1784 watermark has never been exceeded by any
other known flood (Schmidt 2000). The estimated peak
discharge of the River Vltava in Prague was 4,580 m3
s−1
during February 1784; it is the highest winter flood since
the start of flow measurements in 1825 and is only
exceeded by August 2002 (5,160 m3
s−1
). The situation is
different on the River Elbe at Děčín, where the 1784
watermark is 115 cm below the flood of 30 March 1845;
potentially a result of cooling in the break between February
and March that slowed snowmelt, resulting in a water level
below that of March 1845 (Brázdil et al. 2005a). On the
River Seine in Paris (the bridge of de la Tournelle) the
February 1784 flood with its height of 6 m was exceeded by
other significant floods of the eighteenth century, notably on
25 December 1740 (7.32 m) and 9 February 1764 (6.45 m).
7 Conclusion
The winter 1783/1784 can be taken as a typical, if severe,
winter during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (e.g. Grove 2004; Matthews
and Briffa 2005) characterised by heavy frosts of long
duration, frozen soils and rivers and deep snow cover. These
factors led to conditions favourable for flood generation when
rapidly warmed as in the case of 1783/1784. These conditions
affected a wide-reaching European region north of the Alps;
similarities can be drawn to other known significant historical
winter floods, such as in February 1655, February 1799,
February–March 1830 or March 1845 (Brázdil et al. 2005a).
In each case, these events had very broad social-economic
impacts reflected in the loss of human lives and extensive
material damage but also in activities aimed at reducing future
flood risk. The floods during the winter 1783/1784 are the
most spectacular covered by instrumental and documentary
data at the broader European scale and provide a valuable
insight into the severity and magnitude of such events.
According to the conclusions of the second working
group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(Parry et al. 2008), the continuation of recent warming
trends across Europe and changes in the water cycle are
likely to increase the risk of floods and droughts, with the
risk of flooding expected to increase in Northern, Central
and Eastern Europe. Model calculations for the 2020s predict
an increased risk of winter flooding in Northern Europe,
coupled with flash flooding across much of Europe. Recent
100-year return frequency floods should occur in the 2070s
more frequently, not only in Northern and Northeastern
Europe but also in Central and Eastern Europe.
Recent winter floods should remind us of the potential
risks that they present. The sudden melting of an extensive
snowpack in Central Europe (Pinto et al. 2007) caused large
floods in March/April 2006, generating flows with a 100-year
return period discharge recorded on the River Dyje (southern
Moravia; Brázdil, Kirchner et al. 2007). Learning from past
events remains an important step in better understanding and
providing more effective protective measures for possible
future events.
Acknowledgements This research has been supported financially by
a number of organisations: R. Brázdil, P. Dobrovolný and C. Rohr by
the Austrian-Czech programme of scientific cooperation in the project
“Climatic Variability and Hydrometeorological Extremes in the Preinstrumental
Period” (AKTION 13/2008); M. Deutsch by the German
Science Foundation in the project “Cataloguing and scientific analysis
of the meteorological section of the Weikinn collection of sources in
the history of Central European weather” (HE 939/ 18-3); E. Garnier
by the French group GIS “Climate-Society-Environment” for the
project RENASEC “Characteristics and frequency of extreme events
in France from 1500 to 1900”, the Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique for the project CLIMURBS and the project “Journal du
Hardy” (Collège de France and UQAM); A. Kiss by EU project FP-6 no.
017008 European Climate of the Past Millennium (MILLENNIUM); J.
Luterbacher by the EU/FP7 187 project ACQWA (grant 212250);
N. Macdonald by an EPSRC-RGS research grant; K. Chromá by research
project MŠM0021622412 (INCHEMBIOL). We are also grateful to the
Museum of the City of Prague for providing permission to publish Fig. 2
and to Jiří Štrupl (Mělník) for Fig. 16. We acknowledge Marcel Küttel
(University of Bern) for drawing temperature fields for December
1783–March 1784 (Fig. 14). The comments of two anonymous
reviewers were greatly appreciated in the improvement of this paper.
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