The Weather and Climate of Wormsloe Plantation, Savannah, GA: Hunting for 285 Years of Historical Weather Records

Wormsloe Plantation, near Savannah, Georgia, was first colonized in 1736 by Noble Jones, a settler from Great Britain, to start a farm and defend the area from Spanish invasion. Nine generations of Noble Jones’ descendants have resided at Wormsloe, making it the oldest property in Georgia, and perhaps in the Southeast U. S., to have been held continuously by one family. For nearly three centuries the descendants have used the 1,200 acre property for a variety of land-use activities, including extensive agriculture, forestry and residence. The plantation, now a part of the University of Georgia, is the subject of a forthcoming book on the agroecology of Wormsloe Plantation. One chapter of the book is dedicated to climate, and the authors of this abstract volunteered to write it. This task prompted our search for historical records to bring life to what are often dry weather statistics. However, no weather observations were taken at Wormsloe itself, so records of both typical daily weather and extremes such as hurricanes and winter storms were sought from a variety of sources to describe the nature of the climate and weather of the region at and near Wormsloe. These sources included historical family papers from the De Renne family (descendants of Noble Jones), historical newspaper accounts, and weather observations from military forts, Smithsonian observers and Weather Bureau observers in the region over time. A list of target dates for significant weather events was developed to focus the search on the most likely time periods for which appropriate weather information would be available. The collected observations and personal accounts were woven into a narrative which included both climate statistics and contemporary descriptions of the weather and climate events that occurred at Wormsloe Plantation. Both the historical research and excerpts from the narrative will be discussed in this presentation.