Lightning strike

[Redneck in training]

My wife and I were walking in the timber on back forty and saw this recent damage to the tree caused by lightning strike.

[k0ua]

That is pretty interesting, I have seen several lightning struck trees, but I don't believe I have ever seen one quite like that before..

James K0UA

[kw22614]

Looks like squirell was playing tarzan.

[Thomas]

Indeed a raw find.
Seems the hardwood trees can take hit better than soft wood tree.

[Baby Grand]

I saw an almost identical stirke about 70 - 80 feet from the house I grew up in. Blew out a 1x3 strip of bark & wood from a 30" diameter red oak, starting up in the canopy and coming all the way down to the ground. I think the fluid in the sapwood / cambium area completes a circuit to ground, flashes to steam and blows out the chunk.

[rogerius]

We had one last year. Pretty impresive after we saw the mark on the tree but also a few feet on the ground away from the tree.

[SHORT KID]

The neighbor had a Hemlock that was hit last year. It is about 80 ft high with a crotch about 50 ft up. We heard it hit but never saw any damage for a couple of weeks, then we found some small slivers around on the ground. It was split right to the ground, so far it still looks alive. We have lost a lot of Hemlock to the Wooly worm around here, so I bet that was one jolt to them if the were in that tree.!!

[tractchores]

Thats a lucky tree. We had an oak get struck near the house and it was splintered to nothing, looked like there were toothpicks and a stump. The stump was burnt too.

[cqaigy2]

I worked in an area up in the cascades in washington state that had a lot of mineralization. It attracted lightning strikes so a rather large number of trees were scarred similar to your picture. Spirals, straight streaks, splits etc. Closest i came to getting hit was while working in that area, approaching the edge of a drop off when everything turned white and very load noise. Didn't remember hitting the ground, but i got up and walked over to the edge and saw a big ponderosa probably 100ft tall, had been splintered. It looked like someone had blown it up with dynamite lengthwise. My ears range for several hours.

[94BULLITT]

I have 4 or 5 trees in group together that look lie that.