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Man captures 'weird anomaly' of Storm Babet lifting forest floor in Scotland
- ipqk 3y ago[flagged]
- pengaru 3y ago[flagged]
- dang 3y agoYou can't post like this here, no matter how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. We ban accounts that post like that, so please don't do it again. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines repeatedly in other places too. If you want to keep posting here, we'd appreciate it if you'd please fix that.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- redprince 3y agoBeing there is dangerous. Not only because that storm is really testing the roots of those trees but because in general high winds will cause branches to break off and trees to fall over. Walking through a forest during a storm is an easy way to get hurt or die.
- DaiPlusPlus 3y agoThe English countryside equivalent of death-by-falling-coconut, I guess - despite the danger, it's just not something people think about.
- thebruce87m 3y agoThis was the Scottish countryside
- alwa 3y agoI’m surprised to hear that. The best figures I could find seemed pretty flimsy, but one [0] put it at an average of 58 deaths annually while another [1] put it at 407 deaths related to “wind-related tree failure” between 1995 and 2007 (of which 38% or ~155 were people who were outside at the time). If the last figure accurately represents the proportion who died while outside (vs when trees crushed their homes or cars), it would seem that those ~13 people a year in the US track lower than deaths due to lightning strikes [2]. Personally I’d rather not be out in a storm any more than I’d want to swim during lightning, but in absolute terms it does seem to be a healthy three orders of magnitude safer than being in a car in the US (at ~37K direct fatalities annually [3]). [0] https://weather.com/news/news/2021-05-11-falling-trees-during-storms https://weather.com/news/news/2021-05-11-falling-trees-durin... [1] https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.457.7635&rep=rep1&type=pdf#:~:text=Abstract%20There%20were%20407%20deaths,snow%20and%20ice%20(3%25) https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.45.... [2] https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-fatalities https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-fatalities [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
- sio8ohPi 3y agoAs a counterpoint: https://xkcd.com/795/ https://xkcd.com/795/
- swader999 3y agoStats seem irrelevant when you see the ground lift up and stand downwind of a massive tree attached to the airborne ground.
- bawolff 3y agoI would presume that most people stay inside during giant storms. Like statistics are a bad way to evaluate risk if the risk is easily avoided. Not many people die from swimming in lava; it is still wrong to conclude jumping into lava is safe.
- sitkack 3y agoHike in the woods during a storm, witness large tree limbs coming down around you all the time. Having a plurality of URLs doesn't change reality.
- throwaway892238 3y agoIt's probably not any more dangerous than being tethered to another being when you need to get out of the way quickly.
- smegsicle 3y agoi'd personally rather my dog check out what its like to ride the earth wave than have to do it myself and who would film it?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tetsuhamu 3y agoThat's why it's awesome.
- eva_cananim 3y agoThere is a thin layer of soil and tree roots on top of solid rock. The trees are bending over in the wind and lifting up the roots and soil. Just some trees with roots that don't go deep down.
- recursive 3y agoAt the edge, why are they not just tipping over?
- schainks 3y agoThe roots look intertwined, so even trees at the edge are bending roots that are long horizontally.
- codetrotter 3y agoSee also: How wide do tree roots spread. > Arborists often recommend a tree protection zone with a radius of one foot for every one inch of trunk diameter — a 12 to 1 ratio. https://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/how-wide-do-tree-roots-spread/ https://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/how-wide-do-tree-...
- xg15 3y agoThey are also pushed by the wind in the opposite direction, i.e. away from the edge.
- foundart 3y agoThat makes sense, but I still find it to be an interesting visual phenomenon
- partomniscient 3y agoHere's some more footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpyGJRONfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSpyGJRONfI
- simoneau 3y agoDirect link to source: https://twitter.com/dsnugentmalone/status/1715356998525485498/ https://twitter.com/dsnugentmalone/status/171535699852548549...
- tetris11 3y agohttps://nitter.net/dsnugentmalone/status/1715356998525485498/ https://nitter.net/dsnugentmalone/status/1715356998525485498...
- mjmsmith 3y agohttps://www.neatorama.com/2018/10/25/Breathing-Forest/ https://www.neatorama.com/2018/10/25/Breathing-Forest/
- ellis0n 3y agoHe clearly needed to wear a helmet
- ellis0n 3y agoI'm serious, when you walk in the forest, branches often fall and you need to look up and protect your head. That's why climbers wear construction helmets. And the situation in the video is quite dangerous. Therefore, always protect your head. I climbed to the top of a mountain of 800 meters and I know what it is.
- clubm8 3y ago[dead]
- IAmGraydon 3y agoTrees with shallow roots blowing in the wind is a “weird anomaly” now?
- synarchefriend 3y agoHaving an explanation doesn't mean it isn't a weird anomaly.
- ofjcihen 3y ago[flagged]
- schiffern 3y agoWhile I agree there's nothing supernatural here, it is still pretty cool that over millions of years trees have developed this communal response to the hazards of wind and thin soil. Essentially this wave-like motion serves to efficiently dissipate harsh incoming wind energy in a non-destructive way, preventing catastrophic erosion failure of the landscape. All in all a very cool biological and ecological adaptation.
- bentt 3y agoYeah I felt like I was reading the output from an LLM using its video recognition.
- gardenhedge 3y agoThis meta commentary isn't very useful or interesting especially when it's just about 3 or 4 posts.
- ofjcihen 3y ago[flagged]
- gardenhedge 3y ago[flagged]
- blurbleblurble 3y agoIs there a bog involved?
- p1mrx 3y agoI think that's a dog.
- dackerlunghack 3y ago[dead]
- emmelaich 3y agoMaybe I'm a bit weird but I immediately thought of MacBeth Bring it after me. I will not be afraid of death and bane, Till Birnam forest come to Dunsinane.
- jfengel 3y agoPedantic point of order: it's Macbeth, not MacBeth. "Macbeth" is his personal (first) name, not his patronymic. His father was Findláech mac Ruaidrí. "Beth" means "life". (Gaelic "beathad", cognate to "uisce beatha", water of life, which gives us the word "whiskey"). His personal name means "son of life". (Not entirely unlike the Hebrew name Chaim, which means "life".) Of course none of that is mentioned in the play. But Shakespeare did at least spell it right: "Macbeth". /end pedantry
- emmelaich 3y agoExcellent, genuine thanks.
- the_third_wave 3y agoIt looks eerie but it is not uncommon for this to happen. It also means he should not have been in the forest since those root clumps will only withstand so much punishment before they tear loose and the trees start falling. It is not uncommon for people to get hurt/killed by falling trees in stormy forests. Even worse than root clumps with the trees still attached are clumps with stubs, i.e. when the trunk has been severed from the root. Those stand up invitingly but can snap shut at any moment like a man-eating Venus Fly trap.
- pvaldes 3y agoGood time for archeology. Once in life opportunity to take a peek before to return and dig another day Also an example of how damaged was the soil layer after the many wildfires that obviously happened in the past
- saaaaaam 3y agoHonestly not sure that there would have been any wildfires in this forest. It’s in Scotland where it is generally pretty wet and not prone to wildfires in forests.
- pvaldes 3y agoI'm 100% sure of that. The absence of a decent soil layer under the trees in such favorable conditions to make soil is the proof of past wildfires. Scotland is overgrazed (at least in some places) but they removed a lot of forest first.