Lightning struck pines!
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Adam_P
TreeHouse WebMaster
Wow that's wild. Cool pics!
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Get em down!
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Wonder why some trees blow up and some don't when struck by lightning?
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Different water content levels?
gf beranek
Old Schooler
Most of the time lightening tracks down the outside of the tree just under the bark, and blows it off. When it tracks inside the tree the expansion of steam blows the tree to smithereens. Wild!
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Thanks Jerry I didnt know that, good info!
gf beranek
Old Schooler
Nice clear images and documentation showing the lightening tracks, Blackoak. It seems odd to me that lightening will follow the grain in the sapwood when electricity supposedly, as a rule, follows the path of less resistance. I haven't quite figured that one out, but someone here must know.
Porkbrick
TreeHouser
the path of least resistance is not always the shortest path. i would guess that because there is a more or less continuous water column in the vessels of the tree it makes following the grain the path of least resistance. the electricity would have to burn through the cell walls in order to make a straight path, if the grain is not straight. i would also guess that that is why electricity is so dangerous for you and i. blood is a better conductor than the other tissues in our bodies. therefor, the path of least resistance almost always passes through the heart, even when it is the longer path by far.
gf beranek
Old Schooler
That's a very good hypothesis , Jamie. thank you. It's getting me to think new. Interestingly blood has the same salinity as sea water, and saline solutions, as I understand, offer a less resistant pathway to electrical current than say pure water.
some years ago I posted a pic on this forum of a redwood in Jedediah Smith that was lightening struck. The entire tree blew up into splinters and laid beside the Howland Hill road like a big heap of spaghetti. Awesome natures forces are.
some years ago I posted a pic on this forum of a redwood in Jedediah Smith that was lightening struck. The entire tree blew up into splinters and laid beside the Howland Hill road like a big heap of spaghetti. Awesome natures forces are.
squisher
THE CALM ONE!!!!
I've been in a bunny bus on a off-road logging road when a tree got hit just off the road damn near right on us. It blew apart like mad. It was surreal west coast down pour. We didn't even stop but drove by the tree for weeks or maybe months afterwards. It was on the west coast of Vancouver island just north of Tofino which is still quite South Island.
Never took any cool pics like these ones though. Thanks for sharing.
Never took any cool pics like these ones though. Thanks for sharing.
Tucker943
Bamboo Plantation Owner
Ive had a handful of blue spruces burst from the inside out. I don't like taking them down. A crane is hardly useful other then to dangle from. Climbing is totally out. and working the tree from the ground up is like suicide in the making. The tree above you can finish collapsing without notice. They just aren't fun for me at all. A lot of anxiety. But I charge out the nose for them. I wont even go near that scene unless the money is right. The risk of personal catastrophe is just unreal. I worked them where they were split 4 different ways through the trunk from top to bottom just waiting to collapse if you touched them the wrong way. Cutting through them is hell on earth. You cant complete a single cut without binding your saw somehow.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Ooops! Dunno how that last pic slipped in!
squisher
THE CALM ONE!!!!
I remember those pics. Cool!
Back in the day I was groundie for a good climber who took down a large red oak which had ALL the bark blown off by the strike. Got the limbs off and dropped the long large bole. When we cut it into firewood, as each cut was completed the round would fall apart into 4 perfect quarters: log splitting by Ma Nature.
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
I posted a picture of a Sugi tree blown to bits. It doesn't nearly parallel the size of the one in Jerry's photos, but pieces were in every direction, including up in other trees some distance away. The guy who owns the property said that he was literally blown out of bed and landed on the floor. The good thing is that is why he hired me to remove a number of other trees, he was not desiring to experience that again. Quite an explosion, apparently. It also knocked the cover stone off a nearby grave marker.
Steve Mack
Life Member.
Lightening came through a small window and hit my steel bedhead when I was a kid, threw me out and left a scorch mark around where I was lying.
Struck the big Ironbark down on the creek once and knocked half of it down then came back the next year and finished it off.
I've been nearly hit twice since, once at my brothers house one night it knocked me off the lounge when it hit the wall. And once here one afternoon, I just turned my computer off because a storm was coming and it hit the window, stuffed the computer because I never made it to the power switch. I couldn't see anything for a bit and I really don't want to smell that smell again.
Struck the big Ironbark down on the creek once and knocked half of it down then came back the next year and finished it off.
I've been nearly hit twice since, once at my brothers house one night it knocked me off the lounge when it hit the wall. And once here one afternoon, I just turned my computer off because a storm was coming and it hit the window, stuffed the computer because I never made it to the power switch. I couldn't see anything for a bit and I really don't want to smell that smell again.
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Wow!
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Bad series of luck, Steve.
I remember reading a news story once about a lightning bolt coming out of nowhere during a cloudless day, and striking someone on a bicycle in front of a house, with the worst of consequences. People on the porch observed it, so said the story. Never forgot it, but have also wondered if such is really possible?
I remember reading a news story once about a lightning bolt coming out of nowhere during a cloudless day, and striking someone on a bicycle in front of a house, with the worst of consequences. People on the porch observed it, so said the story. Never forgot it, but have also wondered if such is really possible?
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Lightening can go from the ground up, which I find kinda hard to believe.
Steve Mack
Life Member.
Those one off strikes are the scary ones that's for sure, the ones I mentioned were like that.
Last week I was grinding a stump from the job the day before, blue sky the way I was looking then it started raining. Then POW, lightning strike about a hundred yards away.
First thought was "What a way to go, maybe the first ever to get hit grinding stumps" Ducked under the porch for a minute then finished in the downpour and went home.
Some interesting stuff here. http://www.comportone.com/cpo/weather/lightng.htm
A small bolt reaches the ground and a much larger return bolt flows from the ground (or object struck) , back along the exact same path.
Nice pictures BOT, hope you don't ever get to smell that ozone smell.
Last week I was grinding a stump from the job the day before, blue sky the way I was looking then it started raining. Then POW, lightning strike about a hundred yards away.
First thought was "What a way to go, maybe the first ever to get hit grinding stumps" Ducked under the porch for a minute then finished in the downpour and went home.
Some interesting stuff here. http://www.comportone.com/cpo/weather/lightng.htm
A small bolt reaches the ground and a much larger return bolt flows from the ground (or object struck) , back along the exact same path.
Nice pictures BOT, hope you don't ever get to smell that ozone smell.
Tucker943
Bamboo Plantation Owner
I wish lightning would strike my firewood pile.
