Tag Archives: storm

Trees

Amy

Leave a comment

Amy hit us with full force yesterday afternoon and left a lot of damage in its wake. It could have been worse, but my garden wasn’t spared, with a massive “rotvelt” (root throw) partly downing one of the tallest trees in the garden, a Norway maple (spisslønn), the second large tree to fall this year (see also:
https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=33221). It was amazing this morning to see how little soil this tree was growing on. So, we have a new feature in the garden this morning with new habitat for nature to colonise, with the tree’s canopy now hanging over the pond area. More pictures and videos to follow.

Just an hour before, the tree was still upright:

Calm before the storm:

Mid-storm view:

Apple tree swaying in the wind; most of the apples were thrown off:

Apple harvest will be easier although the fruit will maybe won’t store so well. The third photo shows apples lying under my udo (Aralia cordata) which was also toppled.

Inspecting this morning! Roots had snapped and a 6-7m wide strip had peeled back to the rock revealing how little soil the roots were growing on!

A few more pictures this morning :

The crown of the tree now touching the ground in the pond area!
The crown of the tree now touching the ground in the pond area!

Birds, weather

January storms

Leave a comment

This January has been a stormy month here in this area with a series of severe weather systems moving past, one (Gyda) with a name, resulting in many trees down, flooding, landslides and avalanches, but my rocky hillside has escaped lightly with just a few branches ripped from trees. With winds largely blowing from the west it’s also been mild with snow coming and going and no frost in the soil. Higher up, there¨’s been large amounts of snow accumulating. 
The latest extreme weather system has given a forecast of very high waves on the Norwegian coast with a deep 960 hPa low located off Eastern Greenland and extensive strong wind fields between there and Norway. Due to the limited fetch lengths in the fjord (maximum about 20 km across the fjord) significant wave heights above 1.5 to 2m are rare. With very strong winds from NE blowing across the fjord and the right stage of the tide, there were some impressive waves in the bay earlier this week. The second video shows a woodpigeon (ringdue) hunched up against the wind.