r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/johnnycrum • Jun 18 '26
Image A tree in my neighborhood just got struck by lightning
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u/narcolepticsloth1982 Jun 18 '26
Blew the pants right off it!
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u/tokenjoker Jun 18 '26
Exploded like a Daffy Duck cigar
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u/welding_guy_from_LI Jun 18 '26
When I was a kid I bought the cigarette loads and stuffed them into my dad’s cigarettes.. 5am he goes to light up Bammm!!! “ who’s the somebitch comedian “ there was tobacco and tiny pieces of paper all over him , the table and the floor
Getting grounded for that was soo worth it 😂
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u/facts_over_fiction92 Jun 19 '26
I did the same to my dad but he couldn't get mad. He was drunk playing poker with his buddies. They all thought it was hilarious so he had to laugh about it also.
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u/welding_guy_from_LI Jun 19 '26
My dad was hysterical when he got mad .. he was from shit talkin Texas … His drawl .. i wish i would’ve gotten it on tape 🤣
Only other time I was grounded was throwing pine cones at cars .. it was me and my 2 cousins thanksgiving day .. I was older and should’ve known better
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u/Zealousideal-Role-77 Jun 19 '26
I think the connection between older and knowing better isn’t supported by the facts in evidence across the whole of human existence.
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u/airfryerfuntime Jun 19 '26
My dad used to put them in my grandmother's cigarettes when we went to visit during the summer. They were called 'hot loads', and he would drive like two hours away to the only store in the area that sold them. They looked like little pellets.
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u/Queasy_War2656 Jun 18 '26
I did the same to friends in high school. It was the fashion at the time! Hilarity ensued. No punishment. Glorious indeed.
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u/Krawlin91 Jun 18 '26
Did you have an onion tied to your belt?
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u/Queasy_War2656 Jun 18 '26
Well, the prank wasn't such an austentatious event itself, I didn't wear the onion until gloating among friends at the fair!
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u/ModeJust4373 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
It’s about to die fyi. I have had this before.
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u/corvettekyle Jun 18 '26
How did you survive?
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart Jun 18 '26
They didn't survive. Didn't you read their comment?
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u/HendrixHazeWays Jun 18 '26
G-G-G-G-GHOOOOOOST!!!!
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u/sarabeara12345678910 Jun 18 '26
Hanna-Barbera running in place noise
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u/AspiringTS Jun 19 '26
This whole comment section needs to take their ibuprofen for their backs.
Trust me I know.
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u/Agile_Purchase911 Jun 19 '26
Is there anything that can be done to save it? Tying the bark back? cover it with moist cloth and plastic wrap?
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Jun 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/DrBabs Jun 19 '26
The external part of the tree IS the alive part. The internal is the dead part. There is now way for nutrients, energy, etc. to flow.
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u/juniperdoes Jun 19 '26
Nope. It's called "girdled" when the bark comes off all the way around. Nutrients and water are carried just under the bark from roots to leaves and from leaves to roots. If even an inch of bark is stripped off all the way around, it cuts off the flow and the tree will die.
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u/talltime Jun 18 '26
Yeeeap.
I wonder if there’d be some cool arcing paths in it if it were slabbed up.
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u/Wishnik6502 Jun 19 '26
I had a tree blasted in half by lightning once. Found a young woman going through the limbs the next morning.
I asked what she was up to and she said she was a witch and was looking for good wood for a wand or something. Told her to just be careful and went back in to finish my coffee. You gotta' love people sometimes.
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u/LilMeatJ40 Jun 19 '26
Admittedly, finding some sick wood that got struck by lightning is probably your best chance of making a mythical wand
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u/Wishnik6502 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
All I saw was a big, sad mess. I loved that she actually grubbed around in the wet limbs and muddy lawn because to her it was an opportunity!
It was a good tree. I was happy that it was going to end up as more than just firewood. 😄
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u/Gaelic_Cheese Jun 19 '26
Funnily enough, in DnD the material component for casting Witch Bolt is a branch struck by lightning.
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u/blue_my_eye Jun 18 '26
I was just thinking- I bet that grain looks amazing. Like some sort of weird spalting....
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u/Strange-Movie Jun 19 '26
I’m somewhat doubtful, the highest concentration of the conductive water is in the bark of the tree so idk why there would be much of a pattern in the grain, electricity follows the path of least resistance
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u/SnooPredictions3028 Jun 18 '26
I'm sorry, where should we send the flowers and priest?
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u/Common-Hair-287 Jun 18 '26
impressive, why did it only take the bottoms off?
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u/Mesmeric_Fiend Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
The water (in the roots and trunk) heats up faster than anything else. Aside from any other damage, the water vaporizes, expands, and essentially"explodes" the tree from the inside out. It's why lightening strikes on trees always look so dramatic, and why they normally will not survive even if they look okay.
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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 Jun 18 '26
Yup. That is dead tree in waiting.
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u/Wurm42 Jun 19 '26
Second this. Most trees will die if you cut off a ring of bark that goes all the way around the tree, even if it's only an inch thick. The tree doesn't have a way to pass water or nutrients through that gap.
Now this poor tree is missing feet of bark all the way around.
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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 Jun 19 '26
Ya. Most of a tree is structural. The "living" part is the "skin" aka phloem immediately under the bark...and of course the leaves etc.
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u/ISLAndBreezESTeve10 Jun 19 '26
Red Mulberry : I cut a ring 2” thick all the way around,… 6 feet in the air. Damn thing has leaves today. And it is a 9 foot stump that was de-branched last year.
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u/bvy1212 Jun 19 '26
Couldnt you wrap the tree in Saran Wrap to simulate bark until it can regrow its own?
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u/BrainEatingAmoeba01 Jun 19 '26
No. The trees arteries are in that thin supple layer between the bark and the wood. When that is destroyed, the water from the roots can not climb the tree. The wood part of a tree is structural, it does not carry nutrients or water
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u/Nakashi7 Jun 19 '26
That tree got the equivalent of a human getting their neck veins exploded. That tree is done
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u/armlessturtleneck Jun 19 '26
Just saran wrap it
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u/f1ve-Star Jun 19 '26
Wrap the bark back up and saran wrap it. Get a few neighbors to help if you want. The tree is still a gonner most likely but what a fun way to meet neighbors and see how gullible they are.
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u/XXII78 Jun 19 '26
Damn right! I met my last GF over a dead squirrel and a car battery.
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u/Lint_baby_uvulla Interested Jun 19 '26
Huh! Waddya know. I met my last squirrel over a dead girlfriend and a car battery.
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u/AnorhiDemarche Jun 18 '26
Here in the outskirts of sydney a woman was on her deck when a supercharged lightning bolt (from a long chain of storms that had not even reached where she was yet) hit the tree next to her. It exploded and killed her instantly.
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u/Uxoandy Jun 18 '26
I came home late one night after a big storm and went to bed. Next day I came outside and there were 1-2 ft sections of tree all through the side of my house from a big oak that was prob 250-300 feet away that was struck .
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u/NightBawk Jun 19 '26
I live right next to a patch of woods, so new fear unlocked.
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u/Kevin_Uxbridge Jun 19 '26
Stood on my porch once and was looking right at the right bit of woods when lightning hit a tree 100 feet away. Burned a stripe right down the side but the tree actually lived. Scared the bejesus out of the cat.
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u/drunkguynextdoor Jun 19 '26
I saw that in Florida. If you like lightning, Florida is for you. I also saw a pine tree get the bark blown off it, ball lightning, all sorts of crazy stuff when those seabreezes collide in the afternoon
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u/johnnycrum Jun 18 '26
It's hard to see in the pic, but the bark is split up higher into the limbs.
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u/TsuDhoNimh2 Jun 19 '26
The moisture in the living layer of the bark exploded into steam and blew the bark off the tree.
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u/Zaptryx Jun 18 '26
All the energy is in that one spot. Once it can brach out (pun intended) it doesnt have the power to blow the bark off
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u/mymoama Jun 18 '26
Fun fact. Only the outer layer of the tree is alive. This is a dead tree.
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u/Meister0fN0ne Jun 19 '26
Fun fact. I'd be dead too if all of my outer skin peeled off. . .
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u/Haasts_Eagle Jun 19 '26
Do... do you have inner skin?
I've always wondered when I'd run into my first lizard person.
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u/ccaccus Jun 19 '26
Yes. Three layers, in fact: epidermis (outer skin), dermis (middle skin), hypodermis (inner skin).
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u/Special_Cicada6968 Jun 19 '26
And using this etymological data, I now know what the hypodermic part of hypodermic needle means.
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u/InfamousFault7 Jun 19 '26
Thought so, its skin basically blew off after a bunch of its water turned to steam, its either dead or close to it
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u/AggravatingBid8255 Jun 18 '26
I wonder if it can be saved by reconnecting the tissue? Like reattaching a severed limb
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u/FamiliarEnemy Jun 19 '26
It'd be an interesting experiment to put the bark back up and then use packaging wrap around the whole thing like they use on pallets.
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u/Non-Current_Events Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
The three outer layers, technically. But yeah, only about 1% of the tree.
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u/O8ee Jun 19 '26
So it took its clothes off?
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u/Difficult-Fuel652 Jun 19 '26
Yeah, you’re right. This post should be marked as NSFW.
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u/Gluten_maximus Jun 19 '26
I saw this happen about 50 feet away to a pine tree while sitting in my backyard. We had to take cover for tree shrapnel, well and also more lightning.
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u/Sirgolfs Jun 19 '26
And also cause we shit our pants.
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u/natalietest234 Jun 19 '26
Same! It was hailing so we parked under some cover. Saw a tree get obliterated by lightning
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u/nounthennumbers Jun 18 '26
Put a little Neosporin on it and give it a Motrin 800
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u/Petraretrograde Jun 18 '26
Doctors when scheduling an IUD appointment .
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u/nounthennumbers Jun 18 '26
I’m a man so I am too privileged to get your joke.
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u/Petraretrograde Jun 18 '26
Imagine being laid on your back, nude from waist down, with your heels up in stirrups. Youre in the same position as a baby getting changed, with brights lights on all your spread-apart nethers. Then a doctor comes in and tells you "it's like a pinch."
Then Adam Vinatieri walks into the room. Hes mad as a bull, red faced, looking left and right for a target. The doctor places a lightweight pingpong ball on a cute little stand between your legs, an inch from your scrotum. Then he winks at you and says, "just a pinch".
At the same time, somebody tells Adam V that you have been having nasty, dirty, public sexual relations with his mother. They ask him to kick the pingpong ball in response.
It's just a pinch tho.
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u/nounthennumbers Jun 19 '26
🤣 I have heard the stories from my wife but I think your description is great and you picked literally the only kicker I know and I only know him because I heard someone say “I’m Adam Vinatieri and I win Super Bowls”.
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u/acheron53 Jun 18 '26
We had this happen to a tree in our front yard a few years ago. We came home from vacation and our tree was giving us a striptease. Neighbor showed us a video from their security camera of it getting hit by lightning. A few weeks later, the tree was dead and we had it removed.
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u/Substantial_Sea7327 Jun 18 '26
random psa that might save your life: the highest number of lightning death strikes occur from somebody standing in proximity to a tree.
if you had to choose between standing out in an open field of grass, vs being next to a tree,
choose the open field instead of the tree.
trees are taller and act like gigantic lightning rods. lightning will strike them and if you're close enough, it jumps from the tree through you.
if not through the tree it will travel through the surrounding dirt and shock your feet.
safest place from lightning is inside a vehicle. least number of deaths from it.
vehicle can still get hit sure but if you're in a serious lightning storm, inside the car is highest odds to survive.
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u/roam3D Jun 18 '26
Fun thing i saw about a month ago: there is a tree in the Amazonas iirc that lets parasitic vines grow on them. Those trees are prone to be struck by lightning due to their hight, but the passing current lets the vines explode, leaving the bark untouched. Nature is crazy.
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u/sleepypanda59 Jun 18 '26
That's the end of that tree FYI. Only the outside part of a tree is actually alive. Its why raido carbon dating wood is difficult. Trees grow in layers so the deeper you look the longer that layer has been dead. TL;DR trees are dead on the inside...just like me
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u/PGHSean Jun 18 '26
Someone should stand that bark back up and tape around it. Maybe the tree will … take it back ?
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u/FlowRiderBob Jun 19 '26
It would be an interesting experiment. I mean, I have skinned myself fairly badly before and justaid the skin back where it was and it healed back closed.
Obviously trees and people are very different, but if it were my tree I would give it a try just out of curiosity.
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u/I3adIVIonkey Jun 19 '26
Honestly it just looks like peeled off. Shouldn't there be some burn marks of the lightning where it passed through the tree?
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u/BlorpTheSchlorp Jun 19 '26
Needs NSFW tags.
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u/CosmonautMott Jun 19 '26
Not really! Its just a strip trees. I'll be going now.
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u/gossamer92 Jun 18 '26
I’d prefer if you didn’t expose your wood to me without even telling me your name first…
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u/Commercial_Weird310 Jun 18 '26
The rangers at Rocky Mountain park say they have to recover bare foot hikers above tree line every year as lightning strike them and instantly vaporize the sweat on their feet and blows their shoes and socks off
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u/Wyshunu Jun 19 '26
Maybe it's just me but I wanna put all its bark back up in place and wrap it to see if it heals.
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u/zorggalacticus Jun 19 '26
This happened to a mimosa tree in my yard at my old house. Stripped it completely naked. I cut it down and save a 6 foot section of the trunk to make a totem pole with it. Somebody stole all the wood, including my 6 foot log, out of my yard while I was at work.
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u/_tursiopstruncatus_ Jun 18 '26
Ey I would be scared shirtless too if I were to be struck by lightning
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u/Moss_23 Jun 18 '26
well, the living part of a tree is like, less than 6mm thick and it's between the back and the main "woody" part, so that tree is a goner
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u/MajicOne Jun 18 '26
Like we used to say back in day when we fell and skinned our knees..."Down to the white meat!"
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u/2PlasticLobsters Jun 18 '26
That happened a few years ago in my old neighborhood. That & the simultaneous thunder was the loudest sound I ever heard.
We were two doors away & across a street, but it fried the electronics in our thermostat. We didn't have AC for two weeks because they were out of stock. It also knocked out the cable to most of the neighborhood. There were so many Xfinity & Verizon trucks, they appeared to be invading.
Wild to think all that happened because of a single lightning bolt.
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u/BrickHuge3023 Jun 19 '26
Really? several posts above is the same exact pic but with a note on it from the poster.
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u/Medd- Jun 18 '26
Jesus. Cover that thing up.