Walking the dog this morning I came across a wide swath of bark chips scattered across the snow. I could see no evidence of woodpecker work, but in looking up and around I noticed a long strip of bark missing from a nearby pine tree. Last night we had a terrific thunderstorm with lots of lightning. This tree must have been struck! I've seen lightning-struck trees before, but rarely so soon after the fact. And there was no evidence of burning at all, I suppose because of the rain, and the recent warm weather causing melting. A very exciting February thaw.
These are phone pics, but will give some idea of the scene.
holy cats!
ReplyDeleteI once found a pine tree in northern Alberta that had been hit by lightning. It was shredded into millions of instantly dried toothpicks and chunks of bark. Amazing power.
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