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Sunday's Screaming Southeaster


CT Rain

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You guys in the interior and NNE have very tall trees thanks to lower overall avg wind speeds. I am always amazed how huge the pines are up at the lake. We have nothing like that. I am sure that adds to the overall issue when you throw 60+ winds at these massive trees. Many of those trees have big canopies too since they don't lose a lot of limbs on avg. 

 

PF I saw a very similar thing in 2013. Just huge swaths of pines blown down creating massive open areas. I think Chris is correct in that when one or two fall...it can create a domino effect of multiple trees to come down in a small area.

 

So locally there was some decent damage. Nearly every house around me had a tree or limb come down. But it's funny...you go a few streets away and you'd be hard pressed to find a stick on the ground. 

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13 hours ago, OceanStWx said:

We're pretty susceptible overall to windthrows up here. Those pines are top heavy to begin with, with a pretty shallow root system for one. Plus once you take one down, the subsequent neighboring trees haven't adapted to taking the brunt on the wind stress, and they come down too. 

White pine was probably the tallest Eastern tree before the European invaders brought sawmill technology, and may still be, with yellow poplar in the mid-Apps as the strongest contender.  No eastern species sustains rapid growth - height and diameter - for longer periods than white pine.  Thus it can get much taller than its neighbors (between major wind events.)  When pine was king in the north woods, loggers would send an adroit climber up a tall tree to spot the superdominant pines in the distance, so his chums could walk directly to them.  There are still man acres Moosehead north with pines 100'+ towering over 6070' spruce, fir, and hardwoods. They're just not made for 60 mph winds.

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Tamarack, we have these old growth trees with purple leaves (crown beech I think?). They exist in spotty areas, but you'll find a bunch of them on certain streets. Tales of one nearby that is related to the colonial days as a gift from Ben Franklin apparently. Who knows, but these trees have to be over 150yrs old. Extremely large and gnarly trunks. Rather beautiful tree to

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8 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

You guys in the interior and NNE have very tall trees thanks to lower overall avg wind speeds. I am always amazed how huge the pines are up at the lake. We have nothing like that. I am sure that adds to the overall issue when you throw 60+ winds at these massive trees. Many of those trees have big canopies too since they don't lose a lot of limbs on avg. 

PF I saw a very similar thing in 2013. Just huge swaths of pines blown down creating massive open areas. I think Chris is correct in that when one or two fall...it can create a domino effect of multiple trees to come down in a small area.

So locally there was some decent damage. Nearly every house around me had a tree or limb come down. But it's funny...you go a few streets away and you'd be hard pressed to find a stick on the ground. 

Yeah the trees in the NNE valleys are huge, we just don't get wind. I still can't believe we had so much damage on ESE flow.  I can't remember the last time I saw even 20kts out of the southeast lol.  The low level jet is always lifting above us with upslope flow, thencrashes down on the west slopes.  We had worse damage than most of the western slopes, but again those areas probably have stronger vegetation as they get downslope windstorms quite often.

Our high wind direction is NW, especially with a blocked flow we are on the downslope.   

The town manager said it was certainly a worse event than Irene for town because the wind damage was widespread while Irene was confined to immediately adjacent to the river.  However that's just very local perspective.  Ask Waterbury which was worse and it's Irene by a long shot.  

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5 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Tamarack, we have these old growth trees with purple leaves (crown beech I think?). They exist in spotty areas, but you'll find a bunch of them on certain streets. Tales of one nearby that is related to the colonial days as a gift from Thomas Edison apparently. Who knows, but these trees have to be over 150yrs old. Extremely large and gnarly trunks. Rather beautiful tree to

Kickass meteorologist but not as good a historian eh :beer:

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20 hours ago, CoastalWx said:

Tamarack, we have these old growth trees with purple leaves (crown beech I think?). They exist in spotty areas, but you'll find a bunch of them on certain streets. Tales of one nearby that is related to the colonial days as a gift from Ben Franklin apparently. Who knows, but these trees have to be over 150yrs old. Extremely large and gnarly trunks. Rather beautiful tree to

I think it's a variety of European beech - my time in urban forestry was almost 25 years ago and for me was quite forgettable.  But it's definitely not a tree native to North America.

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4 minutes ago, tamarack said:

I think it's a variety of European beech - my time in urban forestry was almost 25 years ago and for me was quite forgettable.  But it's definitely not a tree native to North America.

They are quite majestic. Extremely large. I wish I knew how old they were, but I have to imagine at least 150 yrs old.

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On ‎11‎/‎5‎/‎2017 at 7:49 AM, CoastalWx said:

They are quite majestic. Extremely large. I wish I knew how old they were, but I have to imagine at least 150 yrs old.

Newport, RI has many huge European beech (and other species) over 4' diameter, including some cut-leaved specimens, and a few purples.  Open grown urban trees with decent soil/water can put on half an inch per year, but that still makes those trees century-plus.

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