15th century climate in the Czech Lands and its Central European context

Abstract. Information concerning the weather and related phenomena in the Czech Lands (recently the Czech Republic) in the 15th century may be derived from the Old Czech Annals, chronicles, letters and from the surviving accountancy records of the town of Louny. Secondary sources are only of limited use. Critical evaluation of data from such reported sources, originating almost exclusively from Bohemia (the western part of the Czech Lands), facilitates a degree of description of the course of weather and related phenomena on an annual basis, but not for all years. Records for the 1400s and 1410s are particularly poor, while better evidence appears in the 1430s and 1450s. In order to interpret the temperature and precipitation character of this century, a 3-degree scale for months and a 7-degree scale for seasons were deployed to create series of temperature and precipitation indices. These indices are relatively more frequent for winter and summer, while far fewer indices can be derived for spring and autumn. Despite their incompleteness, Czech temperature and precipitation indices accurately reflect the occurrence of significant extremes and climate anomalies in Central Europe during the 15th century. Comparison with existing proxy reconstructions and paleo-reanalysis shows that the 15th-century Czech indices provide unique information, especially about December–February temperature variability, which is not easy to obtain from the study of natural proxies.