With a major winter storm about to blast pretty much every US state east of the Rocky Mountains, many are scrambling to prepare for the cold, ice, and snow.
And according to popular meteorology influencer Max Schuster, there’s yet another winter-weather hazard to watch out for: trees exploding in the frigid air.
On a viral post on X-formerly-Twitter, Schuster — who holds a meteorology degree and goes by “Max Velocity” on social media — declared an area of “exploding tree risk” across the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern Michigan.
“Exploding trees are possible in the Midwest and Northern Plains on Friday and Saturday, as temperatures are forecasted to fall 20 degrees below zero!” Schuster warned.
While the claim may sound far fetched, a number of legitimate publications have come out of the woodwork to back the assertion, suggesting that sap and moisture from within the trees can indeed expand so rapidly that the tree’s structure simply can’t hold it.
As with anything originating from the internet, the reality is more mundane than viral post suggests. Yes, it can and does happen — though midwestern forests aren’t about to start popping like corn kernels.
In an attempt to clear things up, Bill McNee, a forest health specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that it’s not unheard of for rapid temperature drops to cause “frost cracks” in trees, which can be accompanied by a loud and unsettling “bang.”
“It’s going to get cold enough that this sap may actually finally freeze. And when it does that, like ice cubes in your freezer, they expand very quickly,” McNee told the Sentinel. “That just creates a lot of physical pressure that can lead to the frost cracking appearing suddenly, branches can fall off, and people hear this really loud crack from their tree, almost like it’s a gunshot.”
While these frost cracks can be large enough to cause a tree’s exterior tissue to literally explode, McNee says it’s “extremely rare.”
“I’ve never seen the damage of it,” McNee continued, “but from what I have seen and what I read online is that it is rare for there just to be so much pressure that is suddenly released inside this tree that it almost does explode.”
More on cold weather: There’s a Particularly Sinister Explanation for Why Trump Wants to Seize Greenland
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