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Book of Mormon Covenant Lands According to the Best Sources

"snow", "hail"  and "whirlwinds"

After Nephi arrived in the American Promised Land, he made plates of ore for recording his people's history. He then made other plates to contain things for the spiritual instruction of his people that should possess the land, and also for other wise purposes. (1 Nephi 19:1-5, 2 Nephi 5:28-33) Upon these plates, Nephi recorded the description of his previous vision of the Tree of Life:

"...And I looked and beheld a tree... and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow." (1 Nephi 11:8)

Nephi was addressing generations of his own people in the Promised Land. He would not have used descriptions that would be unfamiliar to them. He knew that not only would they know "snow" they would understand the expression translated, "whiteness of the driven snow" an expression not found in Hebrew scripture.

Isaiah wrote, "...though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow..." (Isaiah 1:18) What the prophet literally says is, "kasheleg" (כַּשֶׁלֶג), which means "as (like) snow".

It rarely snows in Jerusalem. Where would Jewish prophets have seen snow? They would have seen the northern snow capped peak of Mount Hermon and the snow covered mountains of the L'vanon (Lebanon); which name, incidentally, derives from the word "lavan" as in Laban, meaning "white". (Jeremiah 18:14, Psalm 51:7)  

But what did Nephi write? Nephi did not write "kasheleg yal'binu", "they shall be as white as snow", Nephi wrote, "...the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow." In other words Nephi had experienced something like a blizzard - snow driven by the wind into drifts. This he may have experienced for the first time in the Promised Land, and he knew that generations of his people in the land would understand his description.

By comparison, Lehi, addressing his family in the Arabian wilderness, did not use the expression "whiteness of the driven snow" to describe the fruit of the Tree of Life. Lehi's choice of words were as follows:

"Yea and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen." (1 Nephi 8:11)

"whiteness of the driven snow" is Nephi's  description, recorded after arriving in the American Promised Land.

The Book of Mormon also mentions hail.
(Mosiah 12:6, Helaman 5:12) Severe hail is far more likely to occur in temperate climates than in the tropics.

The LORD in his "fierce anger" warned the people living in the land of Nephi, that if they did not repent, he would "send forth hail...and it would smite them..." There is every reason to believe, that the threat was understood by the people. They understood the threat of hail, just as they understood the threat of being "smitten with the east wind" and of having "insects...pester their land...and devour their grain." (Mosiah 12:1-6)

A Semitic word translated "hail" in the King James Bible is "barad" (בָּרָד). The meaning of this word relates to cold or become cold. Thus we see that the Book of Mormon does mention cold weather.  The LORD no doubt intended the people of Nephi to recall the extraordinary destructive hail brought upon the Egyptians. (Exodus 9:18, 24-25, Psalm 78:46-48; 105:32-34) But it is also likely that severe hail was an occasional weather condition impacting the lives of Book of Mormon peoples.

Severe hail forms in thunderstorms with powerful updrafts (20 to 40 meters per second or more). Tropical oceanic storms tend to have weak updrafts. A good portion of the upper cloud layer needs to be below freezing (0 C, 32 F). But the formation of hail is not a simple matter of temperature and latitude. The highlands of Kenya receive hail capable of damaging tea crops, even though the hailstones are quite small, while many tropical highlands, including those in Central America have hardly any hail.

For hail pellets to accrete, and become threatening to man and beast, the ice needs to be kept aloft. In Guatemala, rain tends to fall on top of the updraft. This weakens the mechanism needed for hail to accrete. The low level jet streams in the U.S. and east of the Andes in South America also play an important role in the formation of severe hail storms in temperate zones.

Whirlwinds are also mentioned in the Book of Mormon. (2 Nephi 15:28 (Isaiah 5:28, KJV), Alma 26:6, Helaman 5:12, 3 Nephi 8:16) The Hebrew words translated "whirlwind" (s'arah = סְעָרָה, sufah = סוּפָה) in the King James Bible, can be translated "storm-wind" or "tempest". A biblical "whirlwind" is not necessarily a tornado. This should be kept in mind when interpreting "whirlwind" in the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, the destructive effect of "whirlwinds" (plural) described in 3 Nephi 10:13-14 (also 2 Nephi 26:5), sounds suspiciously like the work of twisters. The atmospheric and topological conditions of northern America favor the creation of tornadoes more than anywhere else.

Though the Book of Mormon mentions snow and hail, this does not mean that the climate of northern America was the same in Book of Mormon times as it is today. There is physical evidence that winters were milder near the Great Lakes during Book of Mormon times. Author Phyllis Carol Olive cites New York Archaeologist William A. Ritchie on the subject of New York's warmer climate in antiquity. (The Archaeology of New York State. p. 32)

On page 103 of HIS LAND: Only One Cumorah, author Wayne N. May includes a commentary on the Carolina paroquet, now believed to be extinct. This lovely warm weather creature once flourished from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico and was a subject of mound builder art.

Subsequent climate change may have eliminated many imported species that previously "did grow exceedingly" - species which could have been especially productive along American coasts with climates similar to Jerusalem's. (1 Nephi 18:24) As Lehi's colony sailed American waterways, they undoubtedly visited such locations. There are places in the United States which will certainly accommodate all seven of the characteristic species with which the land of Israel is blessed.

The seven species of the Promised Land are listed in Deuteronomy 8:7-8. This scripture characterizes the covenant  land as a good land of brooks, fountains, and depths, a land of wheat and barley, of grape vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olives for oil and dates for honey. All of these can "grow exceedingly" if planted appropriately in the American Promised Land. 

Many species found in more southern latitudes could have thrived farther north in Book of Mormon times. Barley and wheat planted in the fall would have endured less cold through the winter months. One would expect particularly dry winters in northern America during times of draught. (Ether 9:30-31) Still, Book of Mormon lands were exposed to a cold season. One of several indication of this is found in the account of Alma and Amulek who were subjected to torture by the wicked rulers of Ammoniah:

"...And they did withhold food from them that they might hunger, and water that they might thirst; and they also did take from them their clothes that they were naked..." (Alma 14:22)

Was it only to humiliate Alma and Amulek that their clothes were removed? The very next verse tells us that, "...they had thus suffered for many days, (and it was on the twelfth day, in the tenth month, in the tenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi) ..." The tenth month of the Israelite calendar is a winter month. (Jeremiah 36:22) Alma and Amulek were confined indoors and made to suffer under theses conditions "for many days" (perhaps nearly a week) without perishing. It is not easy to tell what the temperatures were in their prison given the fact that they were indoors and the climate near the Great Lakes was somewhat warmer than it is today. Presently the winter months of Western New York can see daytime highs in the 70 F range and lows well below freezing. It is important to recognize that Alma and Amulek were being kept alive. Just how long they might have been allowed to go without water, food and warmth is not easily determined.

The Book of Mormon describes Lamanite warriors wearing almost no clothing in the warmer months, following the first of the Nephite year. (Alma 43:4, 20; 44:18) When the Lamanites made a singular attack "in the eleventh month", in winter, they wore garments of skins, yea, very thick garments to cover their nakedness." (Alma 49:1-6)  In a previous battle, Lamanites wore some body armor and little else. (Alma 3:5) Of course the wearing of thick skins had given the Nephites an obvious military advantage, but there is more to the story than that. (Alma 43:19) Thickly covered, the Lamanites sought to launched a surprise winter attack in the eleventh month of the Nephite / Israelite Calendar.

Scripture and Firsthand Statements by Joseph Smith Place Nephite Lands in Northern America

At Harmony, Pennsylvania, the LORD, through the Prophet Joseph Smith explained that Book of Mormon peoples had left "a blessing upon this land ... that it might be free unto all of whatsoever nation, kindred, tongue, or people they may be." (Doctrine and Covenants 10:50-51)

In a letter to his beloved Emma, Joseph wrote:

"We arrived this morning on the banks of the Mississippi ... The whole of our journey, in the midst of so large a company of social honest and sincere men, wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionaly [occasionally] the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as proof its divine authenticity, and gazing upon a country the fertility, the splendour and the goodness so indescribable..."  (Zion's Camp, June 4^th, 1834, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, edited by Dean C. Jessee, pp. 344-346)

Regarding discoveries of antiquities in northern American the Prophet Joseph Smith stated:

"If men, in their researches into the history of this country, in noticing the mounds, fortifications, statues, architecture, implements of war, of husbandry, and ornaments of silver, brass, &c. - were to examine the Book of Mormon, their conjectures would be removed, and their opinions altered; uncertainty and doubt would be changed into certainty and facts; and they would find that those things that they are anxiously prying into were matters of history, unfolded in that book. They would find their conjectures more than realized - that a great and mighty people had inhabited this continent-that the arts sciences and religion, had prevailed to a very great extent, and that there was as great and mighty cities on this continent as on the continent of Asia." ("American Antiquities", Times and Seasons, Joseph Smith (editor), Vol. 3., No. 18, July 15, 1842,  pg 860)

 American Land of Israel

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