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Talk:New England's Dark Day

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on May 19, 2009, May 19, 2010, May 19, 2012, May 19, 2015, and May 19, 2017.

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There are forest fires and thick fogs all the time, why isn't there a record of something like this occuring in other places and other times.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.137.110.157 (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It does sound odd. Has anyone calculated (or run a simulation) as to how much smoke, fog, and cloud cover would be required? Is there a good historical account of the fire? Has anyone asked the hard questions? Viriditas (talk) 11:47, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are such examples, and they are easily found on the Web.

For examples, all of which can be explained by either smoke, heavy cloud cover, dust (volcanic or otherwise) or a combination of these factors: http://web.archive.org/web/20020805025018/http://www.phenomena.org.uk/DarkDaysWeb.htm

I also managed to turn up these words, from Page 193 of the book "Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society":

A man who was on the river observed a dark scum like soot on the surface of the water. Several of our neighbors catched rain water (for there was a drizzling rain all the day at times) and it was so black they would not use it for washing.

When this bit of information is considered, it seems to fly in the face of the popular interpretation (embraced by the article) that the Dark Day was an omen from God. Instead, there is a pretty convincing case that thick smoke under thick cloud cover accounts for the Darkness. The claim that the smoke and cloud cover explanation is mere "speculation" should be removed, also.

Since Wikipedia prefers second-hand, rather than first-hand accounts, this Web page uses the same book as its source (but does not provide a citation... the reference was inferred from quoted text found within the Web page): http://www.weathernotebook.org/transcripts/2002/10/03.php

There is also a better-than-Wikipedia's analysis of the event here: http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/almanac/arc2004/alm04may.htm

This article should be removed from WikiProject Paranormal, as it is already at home in WikiProject Meteorology and Weather Events. 216.215.128.19 09:52, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work - please feel free to make the edits you suggest Gillyweed 10:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The edits are done. The information was so voluminous that it has overwhelmed the original article, most of which has been relegated to a new section entitled "Religious Interpretations," which was then expanded to include the fact that modern religion remains in awe of the event. New sources have been discovered and were used. I don't know how to edit the article's categorization, so it remains a part of WikiProject Paranormal. 216.215.128.105 20:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This sentence doesn't make much sense to me:

The darkness was so complete that candles were required from noon until midnight.

Why until midnight? Why not till 11:00pm, or 1:00am for that matter? Why did they suddenly not require candles after midnight? Didn't people normally use candles if they needed to see at midnight, due to the normal darkness at this hour? Or was the moon full that night and the air cleared enough by midnight that they were able to see well by the light of the moon? Seems pretty strange to me. I wonder if it wasn't just that the reporting person went to bed at midnight and therefore didn't require candles after this hour. Phlar (talk) 03:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a single day. After midnight, that day is no longer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.85.209.224 (talk) 19:45, 29 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seems a little unnecessary to me, making the dark seem almost mystical, which should not be the goal here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.207.206.210 (talk) 18:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While we can't use this (no OR or SYNTH violations allowed), it's very interesting. A possible causation for such a dark day might be "vog". Read this interesting comment: Lost in the Vog of Time. -- Brangifer (talk) 17:54, 24 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That link leads nowhere. 71.72.235.91 (talk) 16:26, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, on Maui next week, we will have vog, sugar cane burning (harvest), and cloud cover–all at once. But we won't need to light any candles at noon! Viriditas (talk) 11:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]