This may be the result of faulty memory (it’s been a few years since the last time I read LOTR), but is it always sunny and mild in Middle Earth?
I don’t recall any scenes in which it’s scorching hot, or rainy, or snowing (other than snow on the pass of Caradhras, which is at least partly attributable to being in the mountains). This is somewhat eyebrow-raising because the book is set in a span of a few months in the dead of winter (the Fellowship leaves Rivendell on Dec 25) in what is roughly northern Europe.
If this is the case, I don’t think it’s particularly significant – just a blind spot in Tolkien’s skills as a story-teller. Just a bit odd.
(In the movie, the hobbits arrive at Bree in a rainstorm, but I think that was license on PJ’s part)
The hobbits go through plenty of weather just getting out of the Shire. And Bilbo encountered plenty of foul weather in The Hobbit, in particular when crossing the Misty Mountains, where they had to take shelter in the cave.
Just re-reading “Fellowship” - lots of weather. It is brought up as a significant factor in the misery of long stretches of travel. Very rainy between the Shire & Rivendell and nasty cold winds & snow between Rivendell and Moria. Less important after that as they have moved into a more southerly climate and the time frame shortens up considerably.
I apparently stand corrected. Maybe the core assertion still works, that the only weather-related items between the Fellowship leaving Rivendell on Dec 25 and the Fall of Sauron (April?) was a nice southernly breeze, and snow in a mountain pass. Perhaps I’d forgotten some.
When the Hobbit’s arrived at Bree in the night it was raining as well. I think there were several instances of fogs playing various roles too (at the Barrow Downs as another poster mentioned…maybe at or during the battle of Helms Deep). When Sam and Frodo were wandering the trackless wastes just before Golum caught up with them and they captured him there was a particularly nasty storm IIRC.
Further, when the hobbits take off the clothes the barrow-wight had put on them and put on their extra clothes from their packs, they feel uncomfortably warm because those clothes had been intended for when it grew colder later on in their travels.
Others have already answered the OP’s question, but I’ll add that Middle-earth is not on an extraterrestrial in another universe, like, Narnia; it is pre-historic Europe of several thousand years ago. Pick a time between glaciations that suits you, but don’t think Tolkien meant to be talking about anything but the orb we all call home.
I agree; that’s why I thought it odd that they were traipsing around in January and never ran into any serious storms – except on Caradhras, which may have been more than just natural weather: either inherently evil or under the influence of Saruman.
There is also an historical reference to a particularly ghastly winter* when wolves made incursions into the Shire. And ISTR that the weather when Bilbo returned to Bag End was pretty vile, which was considered normal considering that it was in November.
*The Fell Winter? I don’t have the books close at hand.
They definitely had weather. The one thing they did not have was toilets. In those days Men, Elves, Dwarves, Ents and Hobbits never needed to eliminate bodily waste. Even flatulence had not been invented yet.
I’m nearly (mumble) years old, and up until right now, I had never thought about what it would be like for an Ent to take a dump. Thanks for planting that seed in my head.
Whenever my friends and I used to discuss whether or not Tolkien’s elves had pointed ears, my response was always, “The only difference between Elves and Men is that Elf shit doesn’t stink. Everything the Elves do is grand and noble and glorious. Even when they turn evil, it’s always cosmic, Darth Vader-style evil. They would never just rob a liquor store. That would be tacky.”
Maybe the core assertion still works, that the only weather-related items between the Fellowship leaving Rivendell on Dec 25 and the Fall of Sauron (April?) was a nice southernly breeze, and snow in a mountain pass. Perhaps I’d forgotten some.