Wild weather
11/08/16 05:10
We’ve been sleeping in the basement for a few nights. Our house is filled with guests and it just made sense for us to sleep in the basement bedroom, which is close to my library while others sleep in the bedrooms on the other floors of our home. I’m very comfortable down here and have been sleeping very well. That phenomenon is assisted, likely, by the fact that with family and friends surrounding us I’m not prone to take a nap or nod off too early, which would mean that I might miss some of the fun and conversation.
On the one hand the basement is not the quietest place in the house. We can hear noises from the water softener and other plumbing. We can hear footsteps in the kitchen above us. But what we can’t hear is the weather and the sounds of the natural world. I’m used to sleeping with an open window and waking to birdsong all summer long. I’m used to being aware of the crunch of gravel in the neighbor’s driveway if he comes and goes in the middle of the night. I’m used to the rumble of thunder in the hills and the wind in the trees.
No worries, this arrangement is temporary and before long I’ll be back to my usual bedroom and familiar sounds.
But I certainly was surprised yesterday morning when I went out to get in my pickup and run to town for a few early morning chores at the office. There is a tree between our house and our neighbor’s place that had blown over. I didn’t even know it had been windy.
We used to call the phenomena a “micro burst.” It is a particular kind of vertical wind that is caused by a deteriorating thunderstorm. What happens is that a very strong blast of wind comes down in a nearly vertical direction from within a high cloud. We would occasionally come upon a small area where all the trees had blown over in the forest and it looked almost as if a tornado had touched down, except all of the trees would be laying in the same direction as if a huge wind had blown them over, which is what had happened. However, there would be trees growing a short ways away that were unaffected, so you could tell that the wind was concentrated in a relatively small area.
Tuesday night’s burst took out 13 power poles in a row feeding electricity to a neighboring subdivision. Power poles are designed to take a 100 mph wind if there is no ice. They can take a pretty good wind with ice, but that is a winter phenomenon. We don’t know the actual windspeed in this particular burst because the nearest official weather station is a few miles away from our area.
We got lucky. We get our power from buried cables and didn’t experience an interruption. And, the tree that fell missed both houses and my pickup which was parked on that side of our house.
The tree that fell is one of about a half dozen dead trees that the neighbor has left standing in the yard. I offered to cut down the dead trees for the neighbor once and was told that she had to check with the property owner and would get back to me, but I never heard back. It’s pretty clear from the experience of Tuesday night that the standing dead trees pose a safety threat. I spoke with other neighbors who are willing to help get the trees down safely so that no one is injured. Obviously they still can’t be removed without the owner’s permission, but the storm provides a big incentive to get that permission. If the barrier to removing the trees is cost, neighbors who are willing to work together should address that issue. That is pretty much just the usual process of living with neighbors. We have to exercise our skills of talking with one another and figuring out how to solve problems.
The weather, however, is something different. The phenomenon we witnessed on Tuesday night is just another example of the power of nature. I commented to someone whose home was affected by the power outage, “All I can say is that if you had been sleeping in a tent out there, you and the tent would have parted company.” The amazing thing is that nature put on that display of incredible power. Forces strong enough to snap off power poles and uproot trees are pretty amazing. And no one was injured. I’m sure that row of power poles will cost the power company a chunk of money to replace them. And they’ve probably invested quite a bit in making the temporary restoration of power to the neighborhood. But financial losses are easier to take than injuries or fatalities.
In the time we’ve lived in this house we’ve witnessed early fall and late spring blizzards that drop feet of snow overnight, accompanied by strong winds that uproot some trees and take the branches off of others. We’ve seen hailstones so big that they break car windshields and pummel the hoods and roofs of cars with dents. Just a few weeks ago we had tiny hail that continued for a half hour leaving the garden flattened and a two-inch thick layer of ice on everything that took 24 hours to melt. It was something we had not previously seen and one fascinating thing is that the grass in the lawn acted just as if spring had returned. That water soaked down into the roots of the grass and it greened up and started growing with a vengeance. I had to return to weekly mowing, something that is unusual in August around here.
The weather still has a great capacity to surprise and amaze us. There are new things that happen every year. And there is one more thing that is surprising to me. I can’t believe that I slept through all of the excitement.
On the one hand the basement is not the quietest place in the house. We can hear noises from the water softener and other plumbing. We can hear footsteps in the kitchen above us. But what we can’t hear is the weather and the sounds of the natural world. I’m used to sleeping with an open window and waking to birdsong all summer long. I’m used to being aware of the crunch of gravel in the neighbor’s driveway if he comes and goes in the middle of the night. I’m used to the rumble of thunder in the hills and the wind in the trees.
No worries, this arrangement is temporary and before long I’ll be back to my usual bedroom and familiar sounds.
But I certainly was surprised yesterday morning when I went out to get in my pickup and run to town for a few early morning chores at the office. There is a tree between our house and our neighbor’s place that had blown over. I didn’t even know it had been windy.
We used to call the phenomena a “micro burst.” It is a particular kind of vertical wind that is caused by a deteriorating thunderstorm. What happens is that a very strong blast of wind comes down in a nearly vertical direction from within a high cloud. We would occasionally come upon a small area where all the trees had blown over in the forest and it looked almost as if a tornado had touched down, except all of the trees would be laying in the same direction as if a huge wind had blown them over, which is what had happened. However, there would be trees growing a short ways away that were unaffected, so you could tell that the wind was concentrated in a relatively small area.
Tuesday night’s burst took out 13 power poles in a row feeding electricity to a neighboring subdivision. Power poles are designed to take a 100 mph wind if there is no ice. They can take a pretty good wind with ice, but that is a winter phenomenon. We don’t know the actual windspeed in this particular burst because the nearest official weather station is a few miles away from our area.
We got lucky. We get our power from buried cables and didn’t experience an interruption. And, the tree that fell missed both houses and my pickup which was parked on that side of our house.
The tree that fell is one of about a half dozen dead trees that the neighbor has left standing in the yard. I offered to cut down the dead trees for the neighbor once and was told that she had to check with the property owner and would get back to me, but I never heard back. It’s pretty clear from the experience of Tuesday night that the standing dead trees pose a safety threat. I spoke with other neighbors who are willing to help get the trees down safely so that no one is injured. Obviously they still can’t be removed without the owner’s permission, but the storm provides a big incentive to get that permission. If the barrier to removing the trees is cost, neighbors who are willing to work together should address that issue. That is pretty much just the usual process of living with neighbors. We have to exercise our skills of talking with one another and figuring out how to solve problems.
The weather, however, is something different. The phenomenon we witnessed on Tuesday night is just another example of the power of nature. I commented to someone whose home was affected by the power outage, “All I can say is that if you had been sleeping in a tent out there, you and the tent would have parted company.” The amazing thing is that nature put on that display of incredible power. Forces strong enough to snap off power poles and uproot trees are pretty amazing. And no one was injured. I’m sure that row of power poles will cost the power company a chunk of money to replace them. And they’ve probably invested quite a bit in making the temporary restoration of power to the neighborhood. But financial losses are easier to take than injuries or fatalities.
In the time we’ve lived in this house we’ve witnessed early fall and late spring blizzards that drop feet of snow overnight, accompanied by strong winds that uproot some trees and take the branches off of others. We’ve seen hailstones so big that they break car windshields and pummel the hoods and roofs of cars with dents. Just a few weeks ago we had tiny hail that continued for a half hour leaving the garden flattened and a two-inch thick layer of ice on everything that took 24 hours to melt. It was something we had not previously seen and one fascinating thing is that the grass in the lawn acted just as if spring had returned. That water soaked down into the roots of the grass and it greened up and started growing with a vengeance. I had to return to weekly mowing, something that is unusual in August around here.
The weather still has a great capacity to surprise and amaze us. There are new things that happen every year. And there is one more thing that is surprising to me. I can’t believe that I slept through all of the excitement.