The bigger they are ...: Lightning shatters tree, causing damage to home, pole

• Image

John M. Steiner / The Sun Val Nelson stands in her yard Friday where a large cottonwood tree was struck by lightning causing damage to her family’s house.

Talk about it

Lighting isn’t supposed to hit the same place twice, but it came as close as it could Tuesday when a sturdy cottonwood succumbed to Mother Nature.

At about 4 p.m. during a thunderstorm a bolt of lightning nearly six times the temperature of the surface of the sun ripped the bark off of the tallest cottonwood in the neighborhood at 1314 Sixth Ave. SE.

Val Nelson was sitting inside in front of her bay window when the strike occurred.

“I saw a flash then I heard it and things started dropping out of the sky,” Nelson said.

In a few split seconds the cottonwood, which was about 3 feet in diameter, shattered into pieces and broke three windows and a utility pole and took down the home’s address numbers. A sizable branch came to rest on the roof.

Nelson and her dog Pong were a stone’s throw away inside.

“It’s a good thing my dog is deaf because she’s a really nervous dog,” Nelson said.

Lightning heats the air around it so rapidly that molecules violently expand, creating a deafening crack, one Nelson has heard before.

Five years ago a tree half the size of her cottonwood was struck by lightning two houses to the south.

The good news is that while it’s not the preferred method of tree removal, she said the tree was a bit of a nuisance.

“My husband (Tom) always hated that tree,” she said.

Sun reporter Ben Rodgers can be reached at 701-952-8455 or by email at brodgers@jamestownsun.com

Tags: news, weather