Lee,
It seems like tornados and microbursts have an affinity for charismatic old growth. Tionesta and Cook Forest in PA, Cathedral Pines in CT, Johnson Woods in Ohio, etc. The list is long. Bummer. Yesterday Monica and I went to the super forest in Trout Brook that we visited last October. There was a lot of stuff down, but I didn't see any crown damage to standing trees, so it must have been from the prolonged rains of this summer combined with some wind as opposed to last winter's ice storm. The canopy was too thick to measure trees, so I didn't try to remeasure the super ash. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lee Frelich" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, August 9, 2009 12:02:14 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Rain ENTS: We finally got some rain in Minneapolis Friday and Saturday--3.5 inches. Its the first time we had an inch or more of rain at one time for 14 months. Its probably too late for some sugar maple trees I was looking at this morning with crowns that are 80% dead. A row of freeman maples in a median strip turned completely brown last week, but they may not be dead, we'll see if they put on a new flush of leaves in a few weeks. Austrian pines have some off-color greenish-brown foliage, spruces have shed a few branches. Locusts, American basswoods, elms, and red oaks have some dead branches, but generally it looks like most will survive. Bur oak is the one species that was not much affected by the long dry spell. The rain was accompanied by the return of tropical humidity and three tornadoes that went through the western and northern suburbs last night. The tornadoes seemed to be rather weak, although we don't have official EF classification from the weather service yet. The rear flank downdraft just south and west of the tornadoes apparently had 50-100 mph straightline winds that may have caused as much damage as the tornadoes themselves. The winds might have hit Wood-Rill, an old-growth maple-basswood-red oak forest in the western suburbs that we use for research and class field trips. Lee --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
