Something Else To Worry About: Droughts Can Make Tree Branches Break Off Spontaneously

Trees wilted by drought near Colchester, Vermont this
month. Another hazard was highlighted in
British Columbia: Repeated droughts can cause
trees and branches to spontaneously break off.

In British Columbia on July 31, a mother and her five month old son died when a tree fell on them while they visited a beach at Cumberland Lake Park campground on Vancouver Island. 

On August 10, also on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, a woman was injured when part of a large tree fell on her.  

In both cases, there were no storms, no strong winds. In both occasions, it was a gleaming, bright sunny day. 

So what happened?

It might have been drought. Per CTV News in Canada:

"A tree physiologist said that several years of repeated drought in British Columbia mixed with heat stress increased the likelihood of branches breaking off and this could even happen on a 'perfectly calm day' without any breeze."

Chances are the trees that caused the British Columbia tragedies had something else wrong with them besides drought. But the dry weather could have been a tipping point. Cumulative droughts tend to weaken trees more than one-offs, so that could have been a factor as well. 

Here in Vermont, the drought hasn't exactly been good for trees, especially those that turned brown, yellow or completely wilted in places where the soil has completely dried out. Examples include the now-sad, wilted, brown trees and bushes you see on the ledges along some of Vermont's Interstate highways. 

However, the risk of tree branches suddenly breaking off for no reason while you're at a state or local park are pretty low. But drought does appear to up the chances of that happening, at least a little. 

Vancouver Island has had repeated droughts in recent years, though the island is not currently especially dry for summer. 

Peter Constabel, a professor of biology at the University of Victoria, said he has seen branches of maple and oak trees just break off and fall on calm days during recent droughts.  

Per CTV News again: 

"It's just hot and dry for a long time, and the branch just breaks off. It's really kind of counterintuitive,' said Constabel, adding that the water in the cell walls in the old helps stabilize a weakened tree. 

Simon Fraser University biological sciences professor Jim Mattsson said he had recently witnessed big branches fall from a Douglas fir on Burnaby Mountain 'If some had been hit by that, that could be quite serious,' said Mattsson, adding that a prolonged period of drought can wear down even a Douglas fir, which is usually very drought-resistant."

Droughts reduce photosynthesis and growth, cut energy and sugar reserves and degrade defenses. All this creates a chain reaction that increases the risk of insect and fungal diseases, causing trees to rot inside.

That inside rot inside, increasing the risk of the tree or large branch breaking or falling over. 

Trees in urban settings are most at risk due to compacted soil, less access to water and hotter temperatures in a city's heat island. 

Climate change can make droughts worse, long lasting or more frequent, so this is an issue that will always be there. And it might get more frequent. 

Trees also lose leaves during droughts. That's why you see a lot of leaves on the ground here in Vermont even though it's only August, not October.  Trees try to conserve water during droughts by dropping leaves.  The fewer leaves on a tree, the less water they need. 

It's too soon to tell whether all this will have any effect on our fall foliage season. 

May Has Produced Some Dramatic Storm Videos, As Per Usual.

Cleanup starts after the devastating tornado in St. Louis
earlier this month. Photo by Brian Munoz via Facebook

Late April and May, living up to their usual stormy standards, has certainly produced some dramatic and sad moments across the United States.   

It's been busy and destructive this year, with particularly vicious, deadly storms striking St. Louis, Missouri and in Kentucky.  It's also been serious in other parts of the nation too.

This brings us to some videos of some of the worst, most dangerous and sometimes most tragic events of this spring. 

Following are some examples.

First,  a compilation of the tornadoes that hit Minnesota and Wisconsin May 15. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below click on that

Drone video of London, Kentucky of tornado damage. You can see how the core of tornado grinded homes into tiny little pieces. Click on this link to view or if you see the image below click on that

A harrowing news story of a family of seven in a London, Kentucky home that was picked up by the tornado with all of them inside and thrown across the street. Miraculously all seven just had minor injuries. Two next door neighbors died.  Again, click on this link to watch or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Another harrowing story of how a couple both lost arms while clinging to each other as the Kentucky tornado blasted through their house. Again, click on the link to view, or if you see the image below click on that:

Video follows the path of last week's tornado in St. Louis. Maps included show how densely populated the area that was hit was. Miracle only five people died in the city. Again, click on the link or if you see the image below, click on that:

Tornado and aftermath seen through a deputy sheriff's dash cam in Colorado. Click on this link or if you see image below click on that to view;

 

U.S. Hurricane Deaths Have Been Declining Over The Past 100 Years, But Is That Changing?

Destruction on Sanibel Island, Florida from Hurricane Ian
A decades long trend in declining U.S. hurricane
deaths might be reversing. 

 The other day, I had a post in which I wondered about possible shortcomings related to evacuations ahead of last month's Hurricane Ian in Florida. 

This issue might have contributed to many of the 100 or so deaths - and still counting - that Hurricane Ian caused. 

I spotted an interesting recent article in the Washington Post that noted that in general, far fewer Americans die in hurricanes than say, a century ago.  

Warnings ahead of power hurricanes have gotten astronomically better since, say, 1950.  So, too, have evacuations, which likely have saved many hundreds of thousands of lives in the past few decades.

In the years around the turn of the 20th century, individual hurricanes killed thousands of people. In 1900, a hurricane ended the lives of about 8,000 people around Galveston, Texas.  A year before that, 3,400 Puerto Ricans died in a hurricane.

In the busy hurricane year of 1893 two hurricanes killed about 3,000 people, about half in Georgia, the other half in Louisiana. And a 1928 hurricane wiped away 1,800 Floridians. 

A database of hurricane deaths in the United States from 1851 to 2010 show that 24 hurricanes in that period each killed at least 100 people.  Only one of those deadly hurricanes was after 1972 - Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which caused the deaths of at least 1,200 people.  

It appears Katrina marked a turning point in the downward trend in U.S hurricane deaths. As the Washington Post notes, we're starting to see an uptick again, after 2010.  As we've seen, Hurricane Ian's death toll has already surpassed 100. 

The list of deadly hurricanes since 2005 continues to grow:

Ike in 2008 killed 112 people in Texas and Louisiana. 

Sandy in 2012 killed 147 in the northeastern United States. 

Maria killed 3,400 in Puerto Rico in 2017

Hurricane Ida last year came close, killed 87 Americans and another 20 in Venezuela. 

The main problem here is people are flocking to the coasts. For instance, the population of Lee County, Florida, which was hardest hit by Hurricane Ian, went from 618,754 in 2010 to 787,976 this year. according to U.S Census data. 

This increased population at the coasts makes it harder to get people out of the way of an approaching hurricane.  There's only so much the roads and other infrastructure can handle in a hasty evacuation.  Plus, a percentage of people won't evacuate no matter how much you beg them. A small percentage of a huge population can be a lot of people. 

I have to say climate change might be beginning to make the problem worse, too.  There's been a troubling trend of hurricane intensifying rapidly just before landfall.  That can catch people off guard, too late to flee ahead of a monster storm.

The base sea level is rising, too, because of climate change.  That makes the storm surges from hurricanes even worse than they'd otherwise be. 

By the way, because of the booming coastal population, hurricanes are getting way more expensive, too. Of the 20 most costly U.S. hurricanes, adjusted for inflation, all but two of the top 20 most expensive have occurred since 2001. Four (probably five if you count Ian) of the top six most expensive had hit since 2017. 

Hurricane Ian was clearly by far this year's most tragic storm.  Unfortunately, in the coming years, I fear we'll go through quite a few more Ians. 

The Climate Disaster In British Columbia/Pacific Northwest Becomes Tragically Apparent

The village of Lytton, British Columbia set all time heat records
for all of Canada three days in a row about a week ago.
The next day, after it reached 121 degrees, the village
was destroyed in a wildfire. Another climate change
disaster. Photo by Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press.

Last week, during the unprecedented, crushing heat wave that hit the United States Pacific Northwest and western Canada, the little village of Lytton, British Columbia set a new record high for any date, any where in Canada.  

For three days in a row. Each day was hotter than the prior one. 

Ultimately, the temperature in Lytton peaked at an unimaginable 121 degrees. The next day, a wildfire swept into Lytton, razing the village, and killing two people

As CBS Meteorologist Jeff Berardelli said on CBS This Morning, "That is a direct connection between climate change and catastrophe."

This heat wave, and the subsequent wave of deaths and fires has certainly gotten a share of media attention.  But it's already fading from the headlines. In reality, even though temperatures have cooled slightly, it's all a true, ongoing climate disaster.  

I say this was, and is a climate disaster because there's widespread agreement that a heat wave of this magnitude could not have happened without a boost from climate change. The results are fatal, and the death toll is rising.  

The British Columbia Coroners Service has reported 719 deaths in the week of the heat wave, triple the number you'd normally expect in the province, according to CBC.

On average, British Columbia sees perhaps three heat related deaths per year at most. 

We all regard Canada as a chilly nation, home to ice hockey and bitter Arctic cold fronts they regularly sends across the border into the United States during the winter. 

Canada, though, like much of the rest of the world, will have to get used to danger and deaths from heat waves. Last week wasn't the first time in recent years Canada suffered a heat disaster. In July, 2018, an intense Quebec heat wave killed no fewer than 90 Canadians.

There are heat deaths in the United States each year, but as summers turn even hotter, those fatalities will increase. Especially in parts of the nation that are not used to extreme heat. 

That same July, 2018 heat wave in Quebec also proved fatal to four Vermonters as temperatures here soared in the upper 90s, and the temperature one night in Burlington failed to drop below 80 degrees for the first time on record.   

In Oregon, last week's heat wave killed 94 people, and that toll is expected to rise as more reports come apparent. 

The summer is still young, so more fatal heat waves are a real possibility. If not here or in Canada, but perhaps in some other part of the world. 

People don't just die from the direct effects of heat. 

There were 710,000 lightning strikes in British Columbia and western Alberta between 3 p.m. Wednesday and 6 a.m. Thursday.  On average, you'd expect about 8,300 such strikes in the same period.  

Many of those lightning strikes would never have happened if not for the heat wave. 

The heat parched the landscape, making forest fires easy to start. During the heat wave, some British Columbian forest fires grew so intense they created pyrocumulus clouds. Those are thunderstorms created from the violent updrafts created by the heat of wildfires.

These thunderstorms unleashed barrages of lightning but almost no rain. Some of the lightning strikes sparked many new fires, which in turn can create more pyrocumulus clouds, more lightning and more fires. The cycle feeds upon itself. 

Fires in British Columbia and the western United States will probably burn all summer, and many more large ones are sure to start. 

We're seeing a repeat of the last few seasons, which had huge, deadly wildfires out west, part of the new normal. 

We feel a few effects of all those fires here in the Green Mountain State, even when temperatures stay cool.  We love the deep blue skies of summer, but the smoke high up in the sky turns the sky a bland, hazy blue gray. 

We'll probably see some of that high altitude smoke and haze overhead this week. The smoke is too high up to cause much of a health effect locally, but the haze is disheartening. 

Combine that with the gypsy moth caterpillar infestation in Vermont this year, which have wrecked the normal landscape of deep green forests, and left a patchwork of brown, denuded trees. That adds to the disappointment in this year's Vermont summer environment. The beauty of the Green Mountain State is diminished. 

Climate change might have had a hand in the caterpillar mess. Recent springs have been hot and dry in Vermont possibly because climate change intensifies spring heat waves.  A fungus that thrives in our normally damp springs keeps the caterpillars in check. Hot, dry weather means less fungus, and more caterpillars.

I got carried away here complaining about aesthetic, but not life-threatening effects of climate change here in Vermont and veered off the main topic.

There is a lull in the heat waves going on at the moment. It was actually chilly in New England this past weekend. We'll have ups and downs in temperature from week to week, and from location to location. It's actually been a cool summer so far, relatively speaking, in and around Texas, for instance. 

However, as climate change marches on, the heat waves will keep striking harder and harder. They'll also become more likely in weird places. Plus, there's other weather and climate worries to deal with. 

For instance, the extreme drought in the West sure hasn't gone away, and that will keep intensifying in many areas for the rest of the summer. That's another crisis made worse with climate change.

Not every weather event is "caused" by or made worse by climate change. Plus, there have always been extreme weather that has caused deaths and tragedy. 

These days, though, many of the headline events are influenced by and made more catastrophic with us spewing greenhouse gases into the air. So expect your news to feature more and more fatal extreme weather events for the foreseeable future.