“This past March was the second warmest winter month ever recorded in the Midwest, with temperatures 15 degrees above average. The only other winter month that was warmer was December of 1889, during which temperatures were 18 degrees above average.”
Two warmest winter months in Midwest, U.S. history may have connection — ScienceDaily
During December 1889 no one needed coal, meat was rotting and maple trees were budding. There was also a deadly flu epidemic which was filling up hospitals.
26 Dec 1889, 2 – The Tennessean at Newspapers.com
TimesMachine: December 30, 1889 – NYTimes.com
TimesMachine: December 30, 1889 – NYTimes.com
13 Dec 1889, Page 7 – Pittsburgh Dispatch at Newspapers.com
28 Dec 1889, 5 – The Morning Post at Newspapers.com
From the 1899 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica
“some epidemics such as those of 1762 and 1889 have been characterized by a severe type of the disease land considerable loss of life. The mortality is generally reckoned at about 2 percent., but when an extensive epidemic prevails, even this proportion is sufficient to swell the death-rate largely. This disease is referred to in the works of the ancient physicians, but accurate descriptions of it have been given by numerous medical writers during the last three centuries, in connection with epidemics which have occurred from time to time. These various accounts agree substantially in their narration of the phenomena and course of the disease, and influenza has is all times been regarded as fulfilling all the conditions of an epidemic in its sudden invasion, rapid and extensive spread, and speedy and complete disappearance. Among the chief epidemics of influenza are those of 1762, 1782, 1787, 1803, 1833, 1837, 1847, and 1889. In several of these the disease appeared to originate in some parts of Asia, and to travel westward through Europe and on to America”
The warmest March in the US actually occurred in 1910, not 2012.
The summer of 1910 was also the longest on record in the US and brought the largest fire in US history to Idaho and Montana.
America’s Worst Wildfire: The Big Burn of 1910
