Meteorological Imaginations And Conjectures. By Benjamin Franklin,
Ll.D; F. R. S. And Acad. Reg. Scient. Paris. Soc. etc.

There seems to be a region higher in the air over all countries, where
it is always winter, where frost exists continually, since, in the
midst of summer on the surface of the earth, ice falls often from above
in the form of hail. Hailstones, of the great weight we sometimes find
them, did not probably acquire their magnitude before they began to
descend.

The air, being eight hundred times rarer than water, is unable to
support it but in the shape of vapour -a state in which its particles
are separated, as soon as they are condensed by the cold of the upper
region, so as to form a drop, that drop begins to fall.

If it freezes into a grain of ice, that ice descends.

In descending, both the drop of water, and the grain of ice, are
augmented by particles of the vapour they pass through in falling and
which they condense by their coldness, and attach to themselves.

It is possible that, in summer, much of what is rain, when it arrives
at the surface of the earth, might have been snow, when it began its
decent; but being thawed, in passng through the warm air near the
surface, it is changed from snow to rain.

How immensely cold must be the original particle of hail, which forms
the centre of the future hailstone, since it is capable of
communicating sufficient cold, if I may so speak, to freeze all the
mass of vapour condensed round it, and form a lump of perhaps six or
eight ounces in weight.

When, in summer time, the run is high, and continues long every day
above the horizon, its rays strike the earth more directly and with
longer continuance, than in the winter.

Hence the surface is more heated, and to a greater depth, by the heat
of those rays.

When rain falls on the heated earth and falls down into it, it carries
down with it, a great part of the heat, which by that means descends
still deeper.

The mass of earth, to the depth perhaps of thirty feet, being thus
heated to a certain degree, continues to retain its heat for some time.
Thus the first snows that fall in the beginning of winter, seldom lie
long on the surface, .but are soon melted, and soon absorbed. After
which, the winds that blow over the country on which the snows had
fallen, are not rendered so cold as they would have been by those
snows, if they had remained.

And thus the approach of .the severity of winter is retarded; and the
extreme degree of its cold is not always at the time we might expect
it, viz when the sun is at its greatest distance and the day shortest
but some time after .that period, according to the English proverb
which says, "as the day lengthens, the cold strengthens;" the causes of
refrigeration continuing to operate, while the sun returns too slowly
and his force continues too weak to counteract them.

During several of the summer months of the year 1783, when the effect
of the sun's rays to heat the earth in these northern regions should
have been greater, there exited a constant fog over all Europe, and
great part of North America.

This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry and the rays of the sun
seemed to have little effect towards dissipating it, as they easily do
a moist fog arising from water. They were indeed rendered so faint in
passing through it, that when collected in the focus of a burning glass
they would scarce kindle brown paper.

Of course, their summer effect in heating the earth was exceedingly
diminished.

Hence the surface was early frozen;

Hence the first snows remained on it unmelted, and received continual
additions. Hence the air was more chilled, and the winds more severely
cold.

Hence perhaps the winter of 1783-4, was more severe, than any that had
happened for many years.

The cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained. Whether it was
adventitious to this earth, and merely a smoke, proceeding from the
consumption by fire of some of those great burning balls or globes
which we happen to meet with in our rapid course round the sun, and
which are sometimes seen to kindle and be destroyed in passng our
atmosphere, and whose smoke might be attracted and retained by our
earth; or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing;
to issue during the summer from IIecla in Iceland, and that other
volcano which arose out of the sea near that island, -which smoke might
be spread by various winds, over the northern part of the world, is yet
uncertain.

It seems however worth the enquiry, whether other hard winters,
recorded in history, were preceded by similar permanent and widely
extended summer fogs. Because, if found to be so, men might from such
fogs conjecture the probability of succeeding hard winter, and of the
damage to be expected by the breaking up of frozen rivers in the
spring; and take such measures as are possible and practicable, to
secure themselves and effects from the mischiefs that attended the
last.

Passy, May 1784. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~volcano/Fr373p77.html

It would seem that the year 1783 was not that dissimilar to last year.
Of course April 2006 hardly counts as winter but hey; he was only
posing some connections he'd come up with. If it can be shown that it
was a year of many hurricanes in the North Atlantic, that would be a
clincher.

I'll be damned if the yanks will insist on calling it the Franklin
Effect. It should be called the McNeil Cycle.

No fear of the first if the man's words are actually read.

Since Mr Franklin was probably writing from Europe, perhaps cross
posting it to a real newsgroup might provide some insight.

I shall leave it stew a while for fear anyone with at least half a
brain might like to look at it before I go to town. Here is an hint as
to how to go about it:

First empathise.
Read between the lines to try and understand his point of view. He was
not able to compare notes easily with his peers and any conclusions he
came to were restricted by the lack of information so easily available
to us these days.

Don't be put off by the language.
It takes years of methodical approach and a mindset amenable, to grasp
the styles both of the original writer and the authors quoting him.

Don't suppose that he knew everything there was to know in his day.
Even the great Weatherlawyer makef miftakef fometimef. I am fomewhat
fey in matterf meteorological but in compenfation for my peerf, I have
paid little or no attention to the modern method. (Which if juft af
well for them, elfe they wouldn't be my peerfs.)