| Sailor's
Pines, Newyago County, Michigan |
Ernie
Ostuno |
| Jul
24, 2004 01:31 PDT |
Sailor's Pines is located in Newyago County, between Grand
Rapids and
Cadillac in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. This is an
even-aged stand
of about 10 acres of white pine. The trees are very homogenous
in size
and height, and it's as close to being a "pure" stand
of white pine as I
have seen. In all the 10 acres there are only two other
individual trees
of other species; one hemlock and one maple. I don't know the
origin of
the stand, but the even-aged homogeneity suggests field
succession. I
visited this area in March, 2000 and estimated the height of
most trees
were in the 100 foot range. A couple of the pines had been
uprooted by
the severe downbursts of May 1998 and had been sawed up. I
counted about
120 rings on both trees, which were cut about three feet up. So
apparently this stand originated about 1880, even though it is
advertised as "virgin pine" in some local
publications:
Sailors Virgin Pine Forest
This is one of few remaining virgin pine stands left in
Michigan.
Dedicated for permanent preservation and owned by James Sailors,
these
pines are reminiscent of what would have been seen in the 1800s.
Some
are over two feet in diameter and over 100 feet tall. Sailors'
Pines is
located on 52nd Street, 0.25 mile east of Locust.
|
| Re:
Sailor's Pines, Newyago County Michigan |
Lee
E. Frelich |
| Jul
26, 2004 07:39 PDT |
Ernie:
The downburst you mentioned from May 1998 is probably the same
storm that
hit Minneapolis, where it did 100 million dollars in damage to
cars from
hail, knocked out power to 500,000 homes for up to two weeks,
damaged the
roofs of 100,000 homes, and blew down 20,000 trees in
Minneapolis, so that
some streets were blocked for 10 days before all the trees could
be
removed. .... (rest of
storm description) |
| RE:
Sailor's Pines, Newyago County Michigan |
Ernie
Ostuno |
| Jul
26, 2004 15:40 PDT |
I think you are right about the origin of the 1998 derecho. I
have
looked at radar data from Michigan and the line of convection
really
intensified as it moved across Lake Michigan. I work at the
National
Weather Service in Grand Rapids and people here still vivdly
recall that
storm roaring through here around 5-6 am. We had measured wind
speeds of
over 100 mph near Grand Haven. There were several large swaths
of tree
damage at a few of the state parks along Lake Michigan. I was
working in
State College, PA at the time and the squall line reached there
in the
afternoon. It passed across northern PA, generally along PA
Route 6 and
I had a chance to survey some of the damage in the following
days. There
was a large blowdown along Bucktail State Park, where I
estimated top
winds at 90-100 mph.... (rest of
storm description)
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