INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY Int. J. Climatol. 28: 1639–1651 (2008) Published online 28 January 2008 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1667 Weather patterns in eastern Slovakia 1717–1730, based on records from the Breslau meteorological network Rudolf Br´ azdil, a * Andrea Kiss, b J¨ urg Luterbacher c,d and Hubert Val´ aˇ sek e a Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Kotl´ aˇ rsk´ a 2, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic b Department of Physical Geography and Geoinformatics, University of Szeged, Egyetem u. 2-6, H-6722 Szeged, Hungary c Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research and National Centre of Competence in Research on Climate (NCCR), University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland d Institute of Geography, Climatology and Meteorology, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland e Moravian Land Archives, ˇ Zerot´ ınovo n´ am. 3-5, 656 01 Brno, the Czech Republic ABSTRACT: The Breslau (Wroclaw) physician, Johann Kanold established a network that included direct meteorological measurements and visual weather observations from several places in Europe. The results of the observations were published every quarter of a year for the 1717–1730 period. They included the first meteorological measurements from the Preˇ sov station (1717–1720), made by the physician, Johann Adam Reimann for the recently defined eastern Slovakia (former Upper Hungary), as well as visual weather observations provided up to 1730 in a similar fashion in Keˇ zmarok by George Buchholtz. The quality of the instrumental measurements of pressure and temperature is discussed. Observations from both places have been used to derive weighted temperature and precipitation indices. Three outstanding weather periods have been analysed in detail: a drought spring-autumn in 1718, disastrous floods in 1725 and a severe and snowy winter in 1725–1726. The article is a contribution to the historical climatology of Slovakia and central Europe. Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society KEY WORDS Breslau network; early instrumental measurements; visual daily weather records; temperature; pressure; weather extremes; eastern Slovakia Received 6 August 2007; Revised 29 October 2007; Accepted 16 November 2007 1. Introduction In western Europe, certain systematic instrumental weather records from individual stations or regions reach back as far as the 17th century, for example a tem- perature series for central England from 1659 (Manley, 1974), and a precipitation series for Kew, England from 1697 (Wales-Smith, 1971); Paris precipitation from the 1680s onwards (Slonosky, 2002); temperature and pres- sure series from Paris and London (Legrand and LeGoff, 1992; Pfister and Bareiss, 1994; Slonosky et al., 2001). In the early 18th century, these came to be accompa- nied by observations from other European stations (see, for instance European homogenized daily temperature and pressure series in Moberg et al., 2000; Jones, 2001; Bergstr¨ om and Moberg, 2002; Cocheo and Camuffo, 2002). However, in many cases this activity was asso- ciated only with a few individuals who provided such measurements for a variety of reasons. In addition to the astronomers, physicians made important contribu- tions. In the Czech Lands, for example visual daily weather observations were already being taken in the sec- ond part of the 16th century, namely by the physician and astronomer, Tade´ aˇ s H´ ajek of H´ ajek for the period * Correspondence to: Rudolf Br´ azdil, Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Kotl´ aˇ rsk´ a 2, 611 37 Brno, the Czech Republic. E- mail: brazdil@sci.muni.cz between 1557 and 1558 (Br´ azdil and Kotyza, 1996) and by the physician, Maty´ aˇ s Borbonius of Borbenheim dur- ing the years 1596–1599 and 1622 (Br´ azdil and Kotyza, 1999). A neo-Hippocratic hypothesis concerning the relation- ships between climate and human health established itself in the awareness of physicians in the 18th century. It had its origin in the ‘Father of Medicine’, Hippocrates of Kos (born c. 460 – died c. 380–370 B.C., most prob- ably in 377 at Larissa, central Greece, according to the UN), a Greek physician and philosopher, who consid- ered disease as a failure of balance between the organ- ism and its environment, including the weather and cli- mate. Hippocrates’ ideas appear in historical times in the work of the English physician, Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689), who believed that atmospheric conditions played an important role in diseases. The impact of the climate on man arose, according to 18th-century physi- cians, out of the effects of the air that people inhale. Efforts to quantify the effects of meteorological patterns led the physicians to perform meteorological observations (Demar´ ee, 1996, 2004). The Breslau (Wroclaw, Poland) physician, Johann Kanold organized a network of several European corre- spondents during 1717 – 1726, and published the results of their meteorological measurements. After his death, this activity was continued by other physicians until 1730. Copyright  2008 Royal Meteorological Society