Brief very high winds Saturday night. Easter morning I awoke to trees broken and uprooted over all around, I've never seen anything like it here. It was strange in that a perfectly healthy 70' cherry w/o leaves yet would be broken in half while a dead rotted one the same size was left standing. I lost a lot of white pine too but 100' away others still stood.

After clearing my driveway of a cherry and pine I got to the 1 1/2 lane road and pine trees from my property had blown over and literally covered 100' of the road. I started working on it but even with my tractor I guessed it'd be Monday before I could clear a path through. After a few hours a neighbor with his family came out the road on the way through to help a family that trees fell on their mobile home and truck. He said "well we can't get through to them so we'll be happy to help you, I have a saw". So they jumped in with his wife, daughter, SIL, granddaughter and grandson, carrying limbs as fast as we could saw them. I moved others and all the trunk sections with the tractor. 4 hours later we had it cleared. Further out my other neighbors were doing the same thing in another section of road.

Today I cleared and sectioned for firewood 3 cherry trees that fell on what I could call "yard". But there are many dozens more down or leaners in the woods across trails.

Anyway I took a few pics of just the road we worked on Easter.







My neighbor when we were close to done.

Wow!

Wow. Be safe and don’t over do it.

What a mess!
Glad your family suffered no injuries.

By your description of how some trees were knocked down and other areas not far away, they were still standing…

Did you have a small tornado come through? That’s what it sounds like by your description.

Anyways, I’m glad you and your family are safe and only suffered the loss of trees.

Damn that looks like a bitch to clean up. Glad you and your stuff remained safe!

Thanks for your kind thoughts and concerns!

Beancooker, some are calling it a micro burst, essentially a small tornado that doesn't touch ground. Whatever, it had a lot of concentrated force. I have a lot of places like this.

I've seen first hand what microbursts can do. Glad you are ok. You'll have some firewood now.

quote:

Originally posted by chbibc:
I've seen first hand what microbursts can do. Glad you are ok. You'll have some firewood now.

Thanks chbibc. Yes all the cherry and maple I'd be able to heat with in two lifetimes. The issue is what to do with all the pine? Many 14-18" diameter near the base, 60'+ tall, and straight as an arrow. I wish I had one of those portable saw mills, it'd make nice 5/8" thick boards for paneling. Then again I don't need any paneling or dimensional wood now.

The stuff across the road was mostly smaller 8-12" centers that I had to section to move out of the way. Normally I just make brush piles and let it rot down, but just moving all that material will be a task. Obviously the fallen pine trees in the woods can just stay where they are.

Likely not tornadic given the trees in pic all go one way. Maybe

A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line wind storm that is associated with a fast-moving group of severe thunderstorms known as a mesoscale convective system. Derechos cause hurricane-force winds, heavy rains, and flash floods. In many cases, convection-induced winds take on a bow echo form of squall line, often forming beneath an area of diverging upper tropospheric winds, and in a region of both rich low-level moisture and warm-air advection. Wikipedia

Glad that you survived!

“It was strange in that a perfectly healthy 70' cherry w/o leaves yet would be broken in half while a dead rotted one the same size was left standing.”

That sounds like a tornado to me. Very localized effects.

preten2b a derecho seems plausible to me as we were right between the cold and warm fronts moving through. And the trees around me were all downed pretty much the same direction.

OTOH the neighbor up the road, his trees broke a different direction.

So who knows? Really what matters is high winds broke and uprooted a whole bunch of trees.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Glad that you survived!

LOL hell I slept through it!

Wowy! Tunguska ll?

If it's a public road, maybe the county will help? After Charley, I rented a T300 Bobcat with a grapple to clean up downed trees. I'd lift a tree, section 8' pieces, and stack them by the road. made a pile 250'x10'x6' and some one the county hired came and picked it up. Then, I made a second pile the same size and again, someone came and picked it up.

For the 12" or less stuff, maybe rent a big wood chipper.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
they jumped in with his wife, daughter, SIL, granddaughter and grandson, carrying limbs as fast as we could saw them.

Now that's neighborly!

Some trees are not as strong as you might think. You cannot see the root structure. There are straight line winds and HIGHER gusts within that do the most damage. You are fortunate to have access to a bobcat.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

You are fortunate to have access to a bobcat.

OP in West Virginia was using his tractor. The reference to a rented bobcat was by a poster in Florida in conjunction with hurricane Charley, more than twenty years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
If it's a public road, maybe the county will help? After Charley, I rented a T300 Bobcat with a grapple to clean up downed trees. I'd lift a tree, section 8' pieces, and stack them by the road. made a pile 250'x10'x6' and some one the county hired came and picked it up. Then, I made a second pile the same size and again, someone came and picked it up.

For the 12" or less stuff, maybe rent a big wood chipper.

I imagine the DOH would have cleared it eventually but would they actually take all the material or throw it back where it came from, I don't know? Yesterday a DOH crew cab pick up with 4 men drove by looking around but didn't stop.

Damn 250' x 10' x 6' is a heck of a wood stack and you made three of them! I'm not dealing with anything like that, thankfully. I guess I'll run over to the local DOH and ask if they plan on doing anything.

I can stack a some in piles for more backstops. This was taken when my grandsons were visiting just a few days before this windstorm. Their first time shooting a .22 and they loved it.