Uh oh....the mountain bikers are NOT going to like this.

A very nasty storm passed through Connecticut in the late afternoon last Friday.  There was flooding in downtown New Haven, and our town got hit by a microburst which caused many people to think there had been a tornado.  Fortunately it mostly passed by our house, but south and east Glastonbury were harder hit.
The reservoir showed some signs of those 100 mph winds during our walk this morning.  Most of the widowmakers left from the October snowstorm seem to have been shaken out of the treetops, and there are a lot of living branches down too.  Some of the younger trees seem to have snapped off, and one large one broke off about 20 feet up its trunk.

The biggest loss was this:

A massive conifer has fallen directly over one of the main trails that follow the bank of the reservoir.  Unfortunately its location at the water's edge did not result in a stable root structure.  It was hit by the wind and simply uprooted.

As you can see, its trunk is about two feet in diameter.

 

It is a shame, because it was a very nice tree that created a lot of shade.  Here it is before it was uprooted.  You can see why the roots were undermined by water.



I'm not sure what the mountain bikers are going to do.  This is one of the main trails that they use and it is now totally blocked to wheeled traffic.  Getting around the tree is difficult enough on foot.  So far I've only seen the water company clearing trees on the main access road.  Hopefully they'll make an exception and clear this one too.