Weird weather in Bristol during the Grindelwald Fluctuation (1560–1630).

The following section reproduces some of the accounts from the chronicles that relate directly to weather events or those that can be assumed to have resulted from poor weather - such as harvest failures and spikes in the price of grain. The entries suggest that Bristol's weather during the Grindelwald Fluctuation was not just cold - it was highly erratic, resulting in a series of extremely destructive weather events. In Bristol itself, the "grete freese" of February 1565 resulted in the loss of water supply to the city, while from Christmas 1607 to early January 1608, the Mayor of Bristol was forced to spend much money on ice clearance.[18] Again, in this context, the annalist's account of the freeze in Bristol seems balanced and fact-based. The problem for scientists is that accurate and systematic weather recording only goes back a few hundred years, even in Britain, and for much of the world, such weather records have only been kept since the twentieth century. [Extracted from the article]