Windy days and broken trees

On Friday, May 4th, the weather station at Leslie Park recorded sustained windspeeds of 38 mph. Unfortunately, this created a problem in the orchard between #6 and #8. Two of the original pear trees from Dr Leslie's orchard were blown over. Both were hollow and predated the golf course. The expected lifespan of a pear tree is around 50 years, so this is not a surprise. 

One of the downed trees. You can see the other in the background.

You can read about our efforts to maintain the spirit of the orchard HERE. Basically, every year we try to replace around 10 of the pear trees. When the golf course was built, there was a 12 tree by 12 tree section that was left. This meant that at least 144 pear trees, plus around 25 cherry trees were a part of the golf course.

Ten years ago, there were less than 90 of these trees left. Now, through attrition of new trees and the death of the old trees, we have almost filled all of the empty spots.

A new pear tree next to the old stump.

On May 30th, the windspeeds only reached 28 mph, but that was enough to topple this old oak tree between #11 and #13. 

It was kind of big.

And also hollow.

In this picture from 2103, you can see the lean that the tree had.

Due to the tree's size, we will not be able to do anything with the trunk until the ground is frozen. Until that point, the tree will remain were it fell. Luckily, it is mostly out of the way.

May 2018 Weather Summary

May had an average temperature of 65.5 degrees, up just over 25 degrees degrees from April. The month started with a bang, as our first high temperature above 80 occurred on the first of May. The high temperature for the month was 94.6 (May 28th, the second day in a row above 90.) There were twelve days above 80 and two above 90. The lowest recorded temperature was 39.6 (May 11th.)

We got  5.57 inches of rain at Leslie Park's weather station during May. The rain fell on 15 different days, with the largest amount coming on the 3rd (0.80 inches.)  Twelve days saw more than a tenth of an inch of rain. The monthly total is not too much more than the average  of 4.05 inches. When you dig a little deeper into the numbers, you can see why it seems so much wetter than normal. In 2014 and 2015, we had over 5 inches of rain for the month, but each month had two days of at least an inch and a half of rain. In 2011, the monthly total was 6.77 inches, but 3.3 inches came in one storm. This means that there was a lot of rain, followed by at least a couple of days to dry out. This year, we saw rain on the 2nd through the 4th. Then we had four days of no rain, followed by a seven day stretch of rain every day. Then three days to dry out, followed by 5 days of rain. Three more dry days, rain on one day, two days without precipitation and then we ended the month with rain on the last two days. The longest period without rainfall was four days. That brings the total for 2018 to 13.78 inches, which is about 2.5 inches above what we have recorded over the last 10 years.

Average windspeed for the month was 2.2 mph. The highest recorded sustained windspeed was 38 mph, on the 4th.