I finally looked up the weight of a fully saturated oak tree

Was reading through an old arborist report from 2019 out of Portland and it said a mature red oak can hold over 1,000 gallons of water after heavy rain. That is like 8,000 pounds of extra weight on the roots and branches before you even factor in the wood itself. Made me rethink how I assess hazard trees after storms especially on those clay soils up here in the PNW. Has anyone else seen numbers like that shift how you approach waterlogged trees?

2 comments

2 Comments

evan_morgan819d ago

Whoa, that's a wild number! A buddy of mine used to do tree work out in the Cascades, and he told me about this one time after a big rain they went to cut down a big oak. He said halfway through the cut, water started just pouring out of the trunk like a broken pipe, and the whole tree shifted sideways a few inches. They had to scramble and get the hell out of there because the thing almost pancaked their truck. Definitely made me realize those saturated trees are no joke, way more dangerous than they look.

brianellis9d ago

About five years ago I had a big maple come down in my own yard after a solid week of rain. It looked healthy from the outside but the roots were basically floating in mud. I had a guy come out with a skid steer to pull it apart and he said the same thing your buddy learned @evan_morgan81: that water weight can make the tree act completely unpredictable. One of the bigger branches snapped off and swung sideways so fast it bent the metal cage on the skid steer's cab. Definitely made me rethink standing under any wet tree, no matter how solid it looks.