The Jefferson Weather and Climate Records

The Jefferson Weather & Climate Records website is a digital resource created from Thomas Jefferson’s weather observations.

Jefferson began keeping daily records of the weather when he was in Philadelphia for the Second Continental Congress in July 1776. He maintained these records, with some gaps, until June 1826, a few days before his death. Over this period of fifty years, he made more than 18,500 weather observations. Many of the records are from his home, Monticello, but he also kept them while traveling. The Jefferson Weather & Climate Records website shows data from Philadelphia, New York, Washington D.C., Paris, and more locations.

This new digital resource provides a full transcription of Jefferson’s handwritten records. Visitors to the website can view the transcription next to images of the original pages, which are now brought together from the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the New-York Historical Society, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. They can also filter and search the data in a number of different ways.