July 4th, 1776 and the Weather

We celebrate American Independence Day in the United States on the Fourth of July every year. We think of July 4, 1776, as a day that represents the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the United States of America as an independent nation.

The Continental Congress approved the final wording of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. They'd been working on it for a couple of days after the draft was submitted on July 2nd and finally agreed on all of the edits and changes.

We all know that July in the United States can be very hot… but what was it like on that fateful day in 1776 when the final version of the Declaration of Independence was presented to the Continental Congress delegates for signature?

American Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson all kept weather diaries. Jefferson noted in his diary that on the day the Declaration of Independence was signed that he had bought his first thermometer on his way to the signing,. Jefferson kept a weather diary from that momentous year 1776 to his death half a century later.

Thomas Jefferson, the actual drafter of the document, was a weather enthusiast and kept a concise journal. According to historians and the Monticello web site

“From 1776 Jefferson kept a consistent and, with inevitable interruptions, continuous record of his weather observations, in America, in Europe, and even in the mid-Atlantic. His practices and those of National Weather Service observers today are basically the same: to measure precipitation and to record the daily temperature range.”

What you might not realize is that July 4, 1776, was an unseasonably mild mid-summer day in usually hot and humid Philadelphia.

Another source listed in the Library of Congress shows the days leading up to the fourth as well as the now-celebrated day:

All in all it wasn’t an exceptionally sweltering day by modern standards, but remember, our Founding Fathers didn’t have air conditioning, they were clad in rather heavy suits and knee high stockings and many were wearing wigs! Jefferson took his last daylight reading for the day around three or four in the afternoon, so it could have gotten hotter later on.

Compared to modern temperature records, the 1776 high temperature of about 76 degrees is nine degrees cooler than the 85 degree normal the city of Brotherly Love experiences.

So when you think back to colonial days, remember that our founding fathers had a nice day, weather wise, to declare the nation`s independence.

We really don’t know what time of day the Declaration was signed, but many of the participants wrote in their diaries about the goings on from the time they woke up to the time they left the chamber in Constitution Hall… Isn’t it awesome that we can “look back and see” what the weather was like that day?

All of the weather watchers would have been familiar with Astrology at the time and probably checked the planet’s positions to refine their weather observations. On that fateful day, Jupiter and the Sun were quite close to each other denoting weather that is warm and usually fine. The square to Saturn kept the day from becoming oppressively hot bringing with it a more northerly, less humid wind.

No one knows what would have been the outcome of the debates leading up to July 4^th that year if the weather had been typically sultry or wetter than usual, but the planets and our forefathers conspired to make it a marvelous day to declare independence.

So go out and enjoy the parades, the barbeques with traditional dishes of hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad and cole slaw then, as the sun sets watch for the awesome display of fireworks while swatting at mosquitos and realizing that Christmas is less than six months away!!!