We had evening thunderstorms roll through. I was in the kitchen and saw the flash of the lightning followed quickly by the sound. You could also feel the strike. I mentioned to my wife “Man that one was close!”. A few minutes later I looked outside and saw part of the top of the tree in the road.
The storms had mostly passed, so our neighbors all slowly started to come outside to investigate. A piece of the tree did break their living room window. A few pieces also flew into the neighbor’s car leaving a dent in the front panel. The top of the tree that you see topple at the end of the video narrowly missed a car parked in the street.
All occupants of the house where the tree once stood were safe but it did bust a pipe between the meter and the house. It was quickly noticed by another neighbor and the water was shut off. The neighbor decided to cut down the rest of the tree a week ago.
(It’s hard to see in the above image but there is actually still a lingering line of visible lightning going into the tree, as you can see in this tiny snippet in the sky:
Wow, what an analysis! I did do a manual scroll to see the strike in “slow motion” but didn’t think to go further frame by frame to break it down as you did. Nature sure is amazing.
I love seeing the Frame by frame grabs like that. I never really realized that it pulses in and out like that. I mean, I KNEW it does that…if we watch lightning it flashes in and out when it strikes, so subconsciously I kind of knew it did this, but it wasn’t until I started analyzing strikes on camera like this that it clicked how much it fades and returns all in the same strike. It’s beautiful.
That’s a tough tree though! I’ve seen several trees explode big branches outward, and this one mostly seems unphased at this distance.
Did you go show it to your neighbors? They might appreciate it.
A few years ago we had a thunderstorm roll through. We have two huge pine trees in the front yard that love to lose their needles and get past my leaf guards and plug up the opening to the downspout. I noticed the water overflowing the gutters, so I waited until the storm passed and got on an aluminum ladder to clean the pine needles. As soon as I touched the gutter, I got a little zap. Nothing like 120VAC but enough to convince me to get my dumb a$$ off the ladder and clean it tomorrow.
I don’t have any leaf guards on my gutters, but I do have a large silver maple in the front yard. On more than one occasion I’ve had to climb my 16’ ladder and clean out the gutters in the MIDST of a thunder storm! I know it was not the brightest idea, but it was either that or let the basement flood. But I always waited until the lightning part of the storms move out of the area.
Now I try to take a more pro-active approach and check the gutters on nice days before rain is in the forcast.
Pshh…Tree looks fine. Still very much alive, and I didn’t even see any branches explode off it. I mean, it leans a bit more to the right than it used to, but lots of people start to lean more in one direction or another as they get old, so it’s just getting a little headstart on life.
We had a storm roll through a few nights ago. One of my Wyze cams picked up the water overflowing the gutter. This gutter is 2 stories high, so getting on a ladder to clean it was not happening. Last year I got on the roof, removed the leaf guard over the downspout and hung over and cleaned the blockage. Never again. I almost fell off even though I was laying on my stomach. This last storm had the same overflow. Got the leaf blower out, turned it on and shoved it up the downspout. Heard a big burp and when I removed the leaf blower a little bit of pine needles came out with a little water. Did it again and got a big rush of water and a gob of pine needles.
Was concerned about water getting inside the leaf blower, but I figured as long as it was on, the blower pressure would easily overcome 14.7 PSI
My last house was an old 2 story house too. So I’m with you on that! My current (and hopefully last) house is a ranch style home. It is easy access to all the gutters and downspouts. It is not yet hard for me to keep them clean. In fact, that is on my “to do” list for this afternoon.
An idea: regular leaf blower with an 8’-10’ 2" or 3" PVC pipe and 90 or 180 elbow at the end. Can save many ladder climbs. And if done before stuff gets wet, super easy (even though it will work on the wet muck as well)!
I learnt it the hard way as even a low slope metal roof is totally inaccessible once the wet season have started.
You guys will end up like that poor tree.
