In the early hours of this morning Tropical Storm Zeta, which made landfall last night in Louisiana as category 2 Hurricane Zeta, reached the North Georgia mountains. Another anomaly of 2020. We don’t normally have tropical storms here, and this one traveled almost 600 miles overland to get to us.
I slept in my clothes in a chair placed as close to the center of the house as possible. Surrounded on all sides by woods, my house is a sitting target for falling trees. But all the trees that I thought would fall, especially those leaning over the lane or the driveway, withstood the high winds. Only two trees fell, one which looks as if something exploded right out of the top of it and the second which appears to have been knocked over by the flying top of the first tree. It was dark as pitch outside when I heard them fall and didn’t get light enough outside to see anything until 8:00 a.m.
Just outside my kitchen window was this…
No bark on the tree, and it looked as if something had been shot straight up out of the center of it. I couldn’t see the top of the tree anywhere.
I did later locate the top which had fallen further into the woods and had knocked down the second tree. Both trees were not large in diameter but were very tall. If either had fallen toward the house, half of my house would be gone.
I’m still wondering what would cause a tree to look like this after a storm…
Unexpected in common hours 
Lightning will sometimes explode a tree, or high winds with a twist to them. Glad you are mostly ok
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Thank you. Surprisingly, we didn’t have any lightning, just high winds. It must have been the wind, but only the one tree was affected.
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That tree looks weird. I have a huge limb down and no electricity all day. It just came back on, thank goodness! Glad you’re all in one piece!
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My dad and sister were without electricity all day, too. Glad yours came back on within the day and you had only a limb down. This whole county is one big mess!
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Lightning could have struck that tree.
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I think it was the wind because we didn’t have any thunder or lightning at all.
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Wow! We have hurricanes and storms come through often and we have a lot of pine trees, and I have never seen anything like that. We have had trees hit by lightning and a lot of trees twisted around until the top fell off, but never all splintered looking like that. I am glad you are okay!
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Thank you! This was very strange, the only tree affected, and we didn’t have any lightning.
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I, too, am glad you’re okay!
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Thank you!
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So lucky. That Hurricane Zeta even made the Australian news with so much damage everywhere. Glad you and the house are safe
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Thank you. I’m surprised there were so few injuries and deaths. This entire area is a huge mess.
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Good grief mom. I’ve never seen anything like that.
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I know. It was the only tree that it happened to. So weird.
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