Hats off to tree service in snowy areas

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M.D. Vaden

vadenphotography.com
Joined
Oct 31, 2002
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Location
Beaverton, Oregon
It hardly ever snows in Portland, Oregon. Maybe once or twice a year, lightly, in the low areas.

Our hills get dusted more often.

Anyway, it snowed light in the lowlands last night, and maybe 4" to 6" in the hills.

I was called to do an estimate on a hill, and drove around a bit.

All I can say is I can respect the efforts of you tree service people that have to deal with tree work in areas that get substantial snowfall in winters.

I like snow - very short term - but it was even refreshing to drive back down the green area in the low elevations where we live today.
 
In Blue River B.C., the snow gets so deep in higher elevations that they actually used a large excavator to dig twelve feet of snow from around the base of large Cedar trees just to enable the faller to safely dump them.
Can you imagine the clouds of powder that would rise when the stem hit the ground, let alone trying to find it after?
John
 
I was born in B.C., but only lived there until a year of age. My mother lived there, and also, she grew up in Ontario, where it sounds like people need to get dug out of houses on some years.

It just snowed in Beaverton again today - probably the heaviest lowland snow since 1968 (about 9" in low lands and maybe 14" in Portland foothills).

Since last night when it was clear ground, we got 5", which we measured about 11am this morning.

Funny about Oregon, we get the precipitation. And we get cold weather into the teens and twenties on many years, but it just is not frequent that both come over us at the same time.

The ice and snow damage to trees is significant when it does snow or ice-up heavy, because instead of weakness being weeded out every year, the climate and trees store up the weak limbs for years at a time, then an ice or snow storm moves in and gets all the weak stuff all at once.

If someone wants to move here, no need to get home-sick for snow. Just move to an east Portland suburb - that will put you about 1/2 hour from Mt. Hood and 40 minutes from all year skiing. It snows a lot up there. Eastern Oregon is higher elevation and colder too.

It snows a bit more in east Portland lowlands because the cold air from the eat dumps out from the Columbia River Gorge area.
 
Salem is a mess too. Lots of trees and limbs on houses. It's amazing that 6-12" of snow can topple 40" oak trees. 4x4 chip trucks are a wonderful thing, wishing for a big disk chipper though.
 
We got about 3 to 5 inches in the Vancouver and surrounding area, haven't seen any mass destruction but, I did take the last couple days to sit and do paperwork instead of driving around playing bumper cars (or trucks as it were) mostly melted by now.
 
Shore pines in upper class neighborhoods were a big one for damage here from what I saw driving to and from an estimate.

Many are under irrigation, thus not rooted well. And many of those homeowners have Chemlawn or other feritilizing the trees, which makes the needles bigger.

8 out 10 trees I saw laying over or already dissected by city crews were shore pine.

Oh....

Hello Canadian person - I was born in B.C.. US citizen now, but I still get up to B.C. to see the relatives.
 
Hey, we had heavy snow with 50 mph winds and gusts up to 75 mph here in Hawaii the other day. I am not kidding. 5 inches of snow fell on Mauna Kea, where the Hawaii Observatory is located. It normally receives some snow every winter and people do go skiing there. It never snows on Oahu, the island where I live.
 
It was a fun experience working one winter through in Ottawa, and as soon as the snow melted, the boss closed the door!!
Actually I enjoy being outdoors in the winter, sure beats the heat and humidity in the summer in my books. I think the major pain was driving chipper truck on less than clear roads.
 
Originally posted by M.D. Vaden
Shore pines in upper class neighborhoods were a big one for damage here from what I saw driving to and from an estimate.

8 out 10 trees I saw laying over or already dissected by city crews were shore pine.

Less discriminating snow here.

Lots of white oak whole tree failures here. Some in unirrigated areas. It looks like the roots break on one side and the other side sinks into the ground. The 40"er is going to eat saw chain unless it stands back up. I haven't seen any signs of disease, but maybe I don't know what to look for.

Honeylocust lead failures, birch limb failures, various pine trunk failures, Doug-firs missing most of their limbs on the N. side, flowering cherries mangled, hollywood junipers tipped, arborvitaes bent out of shape.

So much for a slow season:D
 
Or climber...

yes, I was out knocking snow off my hollywood juniper several times.

koa man...

thanks, I almost posted a question inquiring about island snow yesterday.

Mike mass...

Only for 8 months did I leave Oregon, it was to Georgia. I still remember getting slammed with humidity driving through Macon the night we came in, thinking to myself "what did I get myself into, it's fall and what's this air doing here." We moved out by the time 8 months was over and set permanent roots in Oregon where the weather is cooler and less humid feeling.
 

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