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In this episode of Invisible Iceberg, AccuWeather Network Chief Meteorologist Bernie Rayno and AccuWeather Founder & Executive Chair Dr. Joel Myers take you inside the largest battle of the Revolutionary War and how a sudden shift in weather saved George Washington's troops and America's fight for freedom.
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00:00Welcome to Invisible Iceberg, I'm Bernie Raynaud.
00:05On today's show, we take you inside the largest battle of the Revolutionary War
00:11and how a sudden shift in weather saved George Washington troops and America's fight for freedom.
00:18Plus, what if the battle happened today?
00:22Find out why the outcome would have been vastly different.
00:25And we highlight three critical moments when weather shaped Washington's path to victory.
00:32It all starts now on Invisible Iceberg.
00:41August 1776, George Washington's army stood cornered on the edge of Long Island, facing certain defeat.
00:50Then nature intervened. A rare shift in a wind and a thick, unexpected fog rolled in just before dawn.
00:59Hidden by weather and moving in complete silence, 10,000 soldiers escaped across the East River
01:06under the nose of the most powerful Navy on Earth.
01:10It's just one of the true and fascinating stories in the book Invisible Iceberg,
01:14when climate and weather shape history.
01:16Joining us right now is Accu, the founder and executive chair,
01:20and author of the book Invisible Iceberg, when climate and weather shaped history, Dr. Joel Myers.
01:25Dr. Joel, thanks for joining us today.
01:27My pleasure as always, Bernie.
01:29I think you and I are very fascinated with history, especially American history.
01:34I know I am.
01:35We want to head back into the war that ended up becoming the war for independence.
01:41You know, a lot of people think of that war, that it started July 4th, 1776, between the colonies and Great Britain.
01:51But there were many things that led up to that signing of the Declaration of Independence.
01:58Yes, there were.
01:58Of course, the Boston Tea Party is famous.
02:01It occurred several years earlier, the Boston Massacre.
02:03So there were a number of events in the colonies between increasingly hostile Great Britain and the colonies.
02:11And then finally culminated with the signing of the Declaration of Independence,
02:16Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, July 4th, 1776.
02:21And of course, at this time, Great Britain was a world power and the colonies didn't even have much of an army.
02:28Or a navy.
02:29Or a navy, or any actually military, of course.
02:32Right, exactly.
02:32So right off the bat, the colonies were at a distinct heavy disadvantage.
02:37Oh, no question.
02:38And so once the Declaration of Independence was signed, then Great Britain took even a heavier hand.
02:45They had to.
02:46And they were the strongest power.
02:49They had a tremendous and very well-disciplined army and navy.
02:53And so King George then sent 500 ships, 32,000 people.
03:00That was a big army in those days, the navy, to the colonies to take control once and for all.
03:08And what they wanted to do was separate New England from all the other colonies because there was a lot, obviously, of wealth in New England.
03:17And so New York City was the place to do that.
03:20And so that was their focus.
03:21And they landed on Long Island, on western Long Island, and really focused on building up the garrison around Brooklyn.
03:30And right off the bat, that battle which would come down, known as a number of in your book here, Battle of Long Island, Battle of Brooklyn, or the Battle of Brooklyn Heights,
03:39the English put the colonists at a distinct disadvantage.
03:44Well, they had much more munitions.
03:46They had cannons.
03:48They had supplies.
03:50They had a huge advantage, no question.
03:52And it was, you know, David and Goliath.
03:56Nobody gave the colonies any kind of a chance.
04:00But George Washington was very cunning, and he knew about the weather.
04:05You're right.
04:05He knew he was a farmer from Virginia, and had farmers to be successful have to understand the weather.
04:13There was no weather forecasters in those days, not even up through the Civil War.
04:17So you had no forecast to rely on, yet the weather and the weather forecast always played a big role in military events.
04:26But his observations and his knowledge of how weather unfolded would play a significant role.
04:32So in this case, he and his army were trapped, but they figured they had to get out of Brooklyn and get to what's now up around the George Washington Bridge,
04:43the higher elevation in the northern part of the city.
04:46And how were they going to do that?
04:47They were trapped.
04:48Well, fog, river fog came in.
04:51It was late August.
04:52But he knew on this kind of calm night that river fog would form.
04:59The water's still warm.
05:01Longer nights, just cooling more.
05:04And cooling causes condensation, and fog would form.
05:07It's around 2 a.m.
05:08A dense fog developed, and he escaped.
05:12His troops escaped in that dense fog across the East River very quietly.
05:16All the soldiers just escaped across these, and were basically rowboats, and got to the higher ground of northern New York City.
05:25I mean, at the perfect timing, at the perfect timing.
05:28And it's one thing to get ground fog, but this was a dense, dense fog.
05:33Yeah, that's 20 feet, basically.
05:35You couldn't see beyond 20 feet of dense fog, a river fog.
05:38Yeah.
05:38And it was common in those days.
05:41Remember, it was swampy.
05:43The river was warm, and you had the cooling.
05:47It started in late August.
05:49Of course, the biggest radiation fogs occur in September, October.
05:53October's the foggiest month now.
05:55So it was a little early.
05:56By then, I mean, June 21st is the shortest night.
06:00And by August 29th, when this occurred, it was already into the fog season.
06:05It's almost September.
06:06And so, yeah, and it really was a blessing.
06:09It allowed the colonies to fight another day.
06:13Just a fascinating story.
06:15Thanks, Joel.
06:16We'll talk to you again in just a few moments.
06:18Yes, indeed.
06:20Here now with more perspective is Vaughn Scribner,
06:23Associate Professor of British American History at the University of Central Arkansas.
06:29Thanks for joining us today, Professor.
06:32I couldn't be happier.
06:34All right.
06:35Let's get into it.
06:36Washington's army escaped from Brooklyn to Manhattan in a fog.
06:41How did that weather help save his troops?
06:45Well, this is actually a great story because this is one of the lowest moments for Washington
06:49in the American Revolution.
06:51His forces get pushed down to the tip of Manhattan in New York and he's trapped and he's made some blunders and he knows it.
07:00But he gets lucky because he gets lucky because he has to get thousands of troops across the East River as the British are coming down on him.
07:07And as he starts to make this real gamble and pushes troops across the river, a fog rolls in.
07:14And this fog covers his escape and he later, you know, he later calls this providential and, you know, that as if God is on the side of the Americans.
07:23And they even link it back to 1588 when a providential storm came in and hit the Spanish Armada when they were trying to attack England.
07:33So this isn't the first time that military forces have believed that, you know, providential weather comes in and aids them.
07:41But the fact of the matter is, without this fog, Washington could have lost the war really almost before it even began.
07:50And beyond this escape, how did weather and seasons shape the revolution?
07:55Oh, incredibly.
07:56So in any war, the weather is a constant reality that you're having to deal with.
08:03And it really hurt both sides.
08:05So the British and the German soldiers who invaded felt like the weather and the environment and the climate was this strange alien thing that was destroying their minds and bodies.
08:15But it affected the Americans as well.
08:18So you have the most famous, perhaps, for the American side was the winter at Valley Forge in 1777 and 1778.
08:26If Washington's lucky fog escape was a low point, then the winter at Valley Forge was right there as well.
08:33These cold food and supply shortages really tested the Continental Army.
08:39You also have the hurricane season in the Caribbean.
08:41These storms were often disrupting British naval supply lines and tying up their fleets.
08:47You also have, famously, the heat and humidity and disease in the American South.
08:53Malaria, yellow fever are ravaging British and American troops, but especially British troops because they're more unaccustomed to the environment.
09:00While some local Americans, these militiamen, had more immunity to these diseases, you have also, finally, the most brutal winter in recorded history in America in 1779 through 1780.
09:15The East River in New York City freezes, and British soldiers who were occupied in the city are saying that locals have never seen this before.
09:25Time and again, the weather is affecting not just battles and supply lines, but also the lived experiences of these soldiers on both sides.
09:33When we say the fog that saved America, what lesson does it teach about nature and history?
09:39Yeah, I think the really key thing is how much natural forces can redirect history.
09:46Military strategy always matters, of course, but you have to be able to adjust on the ground.
09:51And these chance environmental events can take everything that you planned and throw it to the winds.
09:57So it really reminds us that human plans are always at the mercy of these larger ecological systems around us and the environment around us.
10:04Humans have been engaged in this multi-century effort at trying to control the natural world, and we keep failing.
10:13Vaughn Scribner, Associate Professor of British American History at the University of Central Arkansas.
10:19Thank you again for joining us today.
10:22Thank you so much.
10:23Still to come, see how storms, snow, and fog shaped George Washington's fight for independence.
10:29But first, nature saved Washington's army in 1776, but today's climate might have doomed the revolution.
10:38We explain why.
10:59Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
11:05I'm Bernie Raynaud.
11:06Back with us again now is Accu with the founder and executive chair and author of the book Invisible Iceberg When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers.
11:14Well, much has changed around New York City and Long Island from the Battle of Long Island or the Battle of Brooklyn, many names of that.
11:24Right now, New York, one of the biggest cities in the world, and the climate has changed a little bit around New York City, some of which is because how much buildings and how much concrete now encompasses the area.
11:39You know, the microclimate is much different today, clearly, than there was in 1776 when this battle occurred, this famous battle.
11:47And, of course, Washington uses the fog to escape.
11:51That fog in late August would be highly unlikely today.
11:55It was swampy then, and now you have all this concrete, bricks, cement, and cement and concrete absorbs the heat and releases it slowly.
12:09So, the so-called urban heat island effect.
12:13So, the nights in late August are probably four or five degrees warmer today, aside from any global warming, just because of the urban heat island effect.
12:24Now, fog forms in August, September, and October, mainly in the Northeast, due to radiational cooling.
12:33In other words, on a clear night, heat leaves the earth, radiation to space, and causes cooling.
12:41And, of course, warm air can hold more water vapor than cooler air.
12:45And as the temperature cools, the temperature falls to the dew point, and fog forms.
12:52Now, if you get rapid cooling, the fog will form earlier in the night.
12:57It will become more dense, and we know in this case it was very dense fog.
13:00You probably have no fog at all under those circumstances today, because of the much warmer temperatures.
13:07That saved the United States of America, that fog, that night on August 29th.
13:13And, you know, just to show you, or just to discuss how strong that urban heat island effect is at night,
13:20oftentimes we'll see in midtown, maybe it's 50 degrees.
13:25You get in the outlying areas on a clear calm night.
13:27It could be in the upper 30s.
13:28I mean, that is a huge, huge difference, all because of the buildup around New York City.
13:35Yeah, you go 5, 10, 15 miles out of town into an area where there's grass and trees and so on,
13:41it'll be much cooler, because, as you said, and the late wind, so it doesn't mix.
13:47Obviously, if the wind mixes it up, then it's...
13:49But calm conditions, clear calm night, yeah, you can have a difference of more than 10 degrees
13:55between the outlying areas and in the city.
14:00But in that case, New York was not built up, and so it was just as cool in these places of Brooklyn and Washington Heights
14:08allowed the general to escape and save America.
14:12Despite that escape and saving America, that battle pretty much told the colonists that this was not going to be over in a short period of time.
14:21And same thing for Britain.
14:24I mean, they had such an overwhelming force, and General Howe laid low.
14:32I mean, he was not as aggressive as he could have been and just pursued Washington and taken over.
14:39He probably figured that they had such an overwhelming force that the colonists would just surrender.
14:46You know, they didn't have much supplies, they didn't have much munitions, and so on.
14:51But if the British had been more aggressive and just attacked and defeated the colonists, the war might have been over.
15:00And after that battle and subsequent battles that Washington was defeated also in White Plains sometime later,
15:10the opinions of George Washington weren't all that high as far as being a tactician and a general.
15:17Amazing to say that today, right?
15:20It is, but let's face it, I mean, the British had overwhelming advantage in the number of troops and the supplies and food
15:28and everything that counts in battles.
15:32But he learned, okay?
15:35And I'm a great believer that success in any field comes from learning from your mistakes.
15:42Nobody's perfect.
15:42Everybody makes mistakes.
15:44Do you learn from your mistakes and get better?
15:47Clearly, he did and became, obviously, the great man we honor today.
15:52And in other battles, you had said that he really was a student and understood the weather patterns and local weather,
16:02and he used it to his advantage throughout the Revolutionary War.
16:06He did, yeah, and we see other examples of it.
16:09He was a farmer, and so he had to know about whether to be a successful farmer
16:13and knew about the intricacies of microclimate, but also, you know, what wind shifts meant
16:19and what today we know about fronts and highs and lows, and nobody knew anything about those.
16:24But in his head, he knew when the wind shifted from south to northwest, a cold front went by,
16:29temperature was going to drop, what that meant.
16:31It's going to clear out eventually, and so on.
16:33So he was a student of that more so than most.
16:37Ironically, he escaped defeat through fog, and then sometimes later,
16:44he beat the British in Trenton going over another river.
16:50It's kind of ironic, and behind a cold front, right, it was icy, and no one expected him to do it.
16:58It's kind of interesting how weather played a role in his legacy and the battles that he fought.
17:05In so many different ways.
17:06In those days, nobody just abandoned the battle.
17:10He just escaped rather than fight.
17:12The British expected him to stand and fight, and the winner's the winner.
17:16So that was their approach.
17:17But he did what was necessary to win or fight another day.
17:22He had the long game in mind.
17:24The long game in mind, and years later, he would win.
17:27He would win and eventually become the first president of the United States.
17:31I want to thank Accu, the founder and executive chair and author of the book,
17:34Invisible Iceberg, One Climate and Weather-Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers, for joining us today.
17:39My pleasure, Bernie. Thank you.
17:40Up next, three pivotal moments when weather influenced George Washington's battles.
17:47Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
18:06I'm Bernie Raynaud.
18:07When George Washington led the Revolutionary Army to victory, weather was often his greatest ally,
18:12and sometimes his greatest threat.
18:15Here are three key moments where weather-shaped Washington's war efforts.
18:20First, the escape from Brooklyn, 1776.
18:24After a defeat by the British, Washington troops were trapped in Brooklyn.
18:28But a thick fog rolled in overnight, covering their escape as they crossed the East River to safety.
18:34Without that August weather event, the American fight for independence might have ended before it truly began.
18:41Second, the Delaware Crossing, 1776.
18:46On Christmas night, Washington launched a surprise attack in Trenton, New Jersey.
18:51His troops braved the winter storm with ice, sleet, and snow to cross the Delaware River.
18:56They defeated a group of German soldiers working for the British.
19:00The wind boosted spirits and gave the Americans new hope.
19:05And finally, Yorktown, 1781.
19:09At Yorktown, heavy rains near the Chesapeake Bay turned roads to mud, making it hard for the British to move their troops or escape.
19:17Washington forces, along with French troops, surrounded the British.
19:21After several days, the British surrendered, and that battle brought the American Revolutionary War to an end.
19:29That's our show for today.
19:31For more information and get your copy of the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shapes History by Dr. Joel Myers, go to invisibleiceberg.com.
19:41If you have a question or comment, send us an email at questions at accuweather.com.
19:47And we look forward to seeing you next time.
19:50We'll see you next time.
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