Tuesday, May 30, 2017

WIND STORM

     A week ago we had a wind storm and some rain with it.  The wind blew all day but the highest winds were from 4:00PM to 6:00 PM.  We had gusts up to 100kph which for this location is a very strong wind.

    Needless to say there was damage. There was little damage to structures but trees suffered a lot of damage. Some trees blew down in the residential areas. The dumb trees chose power lines to fall on. As a result, there were some power outages.

   Out in the bush the story was different. Quite a few trees went down. Trees with some defects in the trunk broke off above the ground. Some trees were completely uprooted. It's amazing how large the root balls can be. The spruce seemed to suffer more damage but many poplars blew down as well.

   This is the worst wind storm I've seen since I moved here in 1969. There was a windstorm in 1978 that took the tops off many spruce trees.

    The city has worked hard to clean things up. First, they made sure that the roads were cleared. Then they cleaned off paved paths and then shale and gravel paths. Later on they will come back and haul away the debris.








25 comments:

  1. That is strong wind. I have seen that in our area years ago. A timber next to a highway had many trees down. It is an unmanaged area so it took years for those trees to come down. I am glad you didn't have buildings damaged. It is lucky a tree didn't land on your house.

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    1. I didn't hear about any damage and no one was hurt.

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  2. Falling trees are the big danger in wind storms here as well. Power outages can be massive.

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    1. Your trees are much larger than ours. Main power lines are above ground. All other lines are below ground.

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  3. Oh my! That's a lot of trees that were uprooted. It's spooky when a tree comes down. Our chestnut tree fell in Illinois and luckily missed our house and fell toward the street. Strong winds like yours can really do a lot of damage. I hope no one was hurt.

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    1. Chestnut trees are surprisingly very large.

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  4. I hope that no one was hurt or even killed in the Red Deer area. It is hard to argue with a falling tree.

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    1. No injuries reported. Falling trees are sneaky. You don't hear anything until they are half down.

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  5. Such a storm can be very frightening for causing lots of damages.

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    1. You spend quite a bit of tie looking out the window.

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  6. Powerful stuff.
    I look at it as a hair cut for the forest. It makes room for the younger trees to pop up and grab some sun. So long as no one is hurt...

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    1. Yes, it's one way of forest regeneration. Here the mountain ash, an invasive species, will be the next forest rather than the poplar.

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  7. We get big wind storms here, too. It's amazing when I walk in the woods and see the massive root structures on downed trees. Thanks for the pictures, Red. :-)

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    1. when I see the root structures I can understand why the trees stand tall and strong.

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  8. A few years ago we had storms like that. We certainly lost our very big tulips and could not even get out of the driveway. Hoping no storms like that this year and glad you are all safe.

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    1. Once in awhile there will be wind storms. It's okay as long as it's every one hundred years.

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  9. We have had lots of storms with high winds lately, with trees down and damage to buildings. A huge turkey house was completely destroyed on Monday. These storms were in nearby counties. Seems like there are more bad storms and tornadoes now than back when I was young.

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  10. I've seen similar damage here after windstorms. I remember one year in Algonquin Park there was a line of damage through the area.

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  11. Wow! Craziness! I'm glad your house was OK, at least.

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  12. Those are some pretty strong winds. Hurricane season is forecast to be more active on the east coast this year. It always makes me restless when those storms come. I hope no one was hurt in your storm. I wonder how the birds do during such an event?

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  13. We too have had flooding in next town. Minden.
    Plus streets wiped out on roads. So people have had to go in other long car rides to get to homes. Meaning out of the way as detours.

    Storms are very scary the results.

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  14. Those were some strong winds. Glad they only affected the trees and no homes were damaged. Better they fell on power lines than houses or cars.

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  15. Wow, those are very strong winds! I hope no one was hurt.

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  16. Hi Red, Sure sorry to hear about the storm. So rare for Red Deer! Hope you didn't have tree damage right their around your home. Thanks for the report!

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  17. What a mess the wind can make. Glad that nobody was injured. We had a big one about a month ago, and it blew down a lot of trees also.

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