The Great Drought of 1540

Hot and dry summers like the one we're experiencing now have occurred time and again, which is why the article "The Year-Long Unprecedented European Heat and Drought of 1540 - A Worst-Case Scenario," published in the journal Climatic Change, caught Red Baron's attention.

I tried to read the original article - especially since my late friend Iso is a co-author - but Springer Publishing has a paywall that can only be passed for €39.90.

In the article, 32 climate historians have painstakingly compiled, analyzed, and evaluated data from more than 300 chronicles, i.e., records kept by farmers, churches, and lock keepers, revealing Europe's great natural disaster.

It's a shame, but the price was too high. However, the European heat and drought wave of 1540 is well documented elsewhere, so I've compiled the information from those freely available sources.

The weather disaster of 1540 had already begun in 1539 in southern Europe but went unnoticed north of the Alps. In Spain, people had been holding processions to pray for rain since October. 

In Italy, the winter of 1539/40 was dry and warm "like July." Although the 16th century fell right in the middle of Europe's Little Ice Age, not a single drop of rain fell from October 1539 to early 1540, while people were rather sensitive to wet and cold summers.

North of the Alps, the millennium drought of 1540 began in the winter. As early as February, a high-pressure system formed over Europe, blocking the influence of the Atlantic and, in turn, the supply of moisture. Although a few storms still moved in, by April the continent was largely shielded from rain clouds.

For 26 weeks, no precipitation fell from France to Poland and from the Po Valley to northern Germany. From late June to early August, not a single drop cooled the brutal heat. An unprecedented 11-month-long Megadrought swept across Europe, including the British Isles.

The dried-up earth reflected even more heat into the atmosphere, feeding an unbearable heatwave. Temperatures were five to seven degrees above the high 20th-century levels. Reformer Martin Luther interpreted this as a sign of the end times. Officials ordered clergy in Germany, Italy, and England to beg God for forgiveness and pray for rain.

Hans Stolz, a winemaker from Guebwiller, Alsace, provided a detailed month-by-month account of the drought of 1540:

©Wikimedia

The year 1540. Although January of that year was unusually cold, February began warm and dry throughout; in March, it rained for three days, and on the first morning after that, there was frost; once the morning passed, the day became quite warm until the end of March; April was completely dry and arid, with no rain or snow falling until the end; May was completely dry and nice until the end; a quarter pound of grain was worth a pound of wine. June was completely dry at the beginning, but toward the end it rained occasionally, though not much, and there was plenty of hay; the month of June began to become terribly dry, and remained so until the end, so that such a dreadful water shortage began in this country that the people suffered great hunger due to the lack of grain, and the crops ...

Streams dried up and grew narrower and narrower. Even major rivers like the Elbe, Rhine, and Seine were so small that one could wade across without getting one's feet wet.

No water powered the mills to grind grain into flour: flour and bread prices skyrocketed.

The harvest withered, and most food was in short supply. With nowhere to pasture, cattle died of heat stroke and hunger, decimating Europe's dairy supply.

As early as the beginning of August, the trees were shedding their bone-dry leaves, as if it were already fall.

As if famine wasn't enough, Europeans were also chased from their homes by forest and structural fires. The dry ground caught fire, and forest and brush fires blazed across the countryside, creeping into the towns densely packed with half-timbered houses. There wasn't any water to put out the fire.

In Germany alone, 33 towns burned. The blaze of Einbeck reduced the entire town to ashes in a matter of hours, causing as many as 500 deaths. For weeks, gray smoke shrouded the continent, behind which the sun and moon nearly vanished as pale red glimmers.

Instead of water, God delivered wine - some of the best ever "created." The extreme heat meant that by the usual harvest time, grapes in Germany and France had dried almost to raisins. The resulting "late harvest" or Spätlese wine was deliciously sweet.

A "Kaiserwein" was harvested in Würzburg from a grape crop that had largely withered away and was pressed into specially crafted Prunkfässer (ceremonial barrels).

It was a stroke of luck; the 1540 Würzburg Stein is considered the oldest known single-vineyard wine and the invention of the Spätlese style.

The Millennium Wine of 1540 is in the middle bottle.

The last known bottle of this wine is kept at the Bürgerspital zum Heiligen Geist in Würzburg.

Most wells and springs lay barren. Those that still gave a little water were strictly guarded. In some regions, drinking wine was cheaper and safer than drinking water, since peasants were charged for well water, which was often contaminated by human waste.

Several hundred thousand people lost their lives because of dysentery, an intestinal infection that causes bloody diarrhea. It is thought that the death toll from disease had the greatest impact of all the miseries wrought by the 1540 drought. Estimates are that half a million Europeans succumbed to diseases, most after drinking tainted water.

With tens of thousands left unhoused, unemployed, and often diseased, local leaders quickly gave in to paranoia to explain the calamities. Authorities searched for scapegoats. At the time of the Reformation, they were found in religious opponents and climate refugees wandering around Germany.

Temperature anomaly in Freiburg for July and August 2026 (©BZ)

What about 2026? For weeks now, Red Baron has watched nature wither from exceptional dryness: the grass is yellow, the Dreisam is nearly dry, and the soil has turned to dust. More and more trees are dropping their leaves. Rivers like the Rhine have turned into trickles.

         In Freiburg, 2026 holds the longest streak of temperatures above 30 °C, and the summer is not over yet (©BZ)

Spring 2026 and the first half of summer rank among the driest ever recorded. The drought is comparable to the historic dry spells of 1976, 2003, and 2018. 

©Hadi/Wikipedia

Are we facing the threat of a millennium drought like in 1540? 

©Copernicus

The 2026 drought will probably not end in the summer. It will extend well into the fall, and rivers are likely to reach even lower levels in early fall than they are now.

Burning of witches (©Wikimedia)

The 16th-century drought and today's drought are similar in many ways, but back then, the blame wasn't placed on climate change - it was on witches. Hungry migrants were rounded up and tortured in hopes of eliciting confessions.

In 1540, for city fires, Martin Luther gave credence to fake news of a papal plot to incinerate Protestant towns.

In 2026, forest fires raging across Europe are being blamed on paranoid arsonists.

On Monday morning, I witnessed a rare weather phenomenon. I think they call it rain. People were dancing bareheaded, and dogs were sticking out their tongues to catch the precious drops.

It was too little, too late.

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