The Osgoods have two maples in their Keene yard. For years they looked like a matched pair. Planted around the same time, roughly the same height, both throwing good shade over the back lawn by July.
Then a summer microburst rolled through one August evening. It lasted maybe ninety seconds. The rain came sideways, the whole street heard the wind, and then it was over.
The next morning one maple stood exactly where it always had. The other was lying flat across the lawn, its root plate torn up out of the ground like a trapdoor.
Same yard. Same storm. Same kind of tree. One held and one did not.
When the Osgoods called us, the first thing they wanted to know was whether it had just been bad luck. It was not luck. The tree that fell had a shallow, one-sided root system and a heavy, unbalanced canopy that caught the wind like a sail. The one that stood was better anchored and better shaped. You could not see the difference from the kitchen window, but the storm found it in seconds.
That is the part most people miss. A wind event does not pick trees at random. It finds the weak points that were already there.
The Same Storm, Two Very Different Outcomes
Here is the short answer, because it is the question we get asked most after a storm. When two trees stand a few feet apart and only one comes down, the difference is almost never the wind. Wind speed sets the stage, but the tree decides the outcome. A healthy, well-rooted, well-balanced tree can take a hard gust and flex right back. A tree with poor anchorage or a lopsided crown can fail in the same gust that its neighbour shrugs off.
Think of it this way. The storm applies the same pressure across a yard. What changes from tree to tree is how much of that pressure each one can carry. Two trees of the same species and height can have completely different root spread, wood strength, and canopy balance under the surface. The storm simply reveals what was already true.
That is also why the biggest tree in the yard is not always the one that falls, and the leaning tree you have worried about for years sometimes outlasts the straight one beside it. Failure follows structure, not size. Once you know what weakens a tree’s structure, you can usually spot trouble long before a storm does.
The Tree Traits That Make Failure More Likely in Keene
A handful of traits show up again and again in the trees we clear after summer storms in and around Keene. None of them guarantees a tree will fail, and plenty of trees carry one of these and stand for decades. But the more of them a single tree stacks up, the shorter the odds get when the wind picks up.
Co-dominant stems are near the top of the list. Instead of one central trunk, the tree splits into two or more main stems of similar size, often low to the ground. Where those stems meet, bark can get trapped in the joint, a condition called included bark, and that union is weaker than solid wood. In a strong gust the tree can split right down that seam.
Prior damage and decay are just as important, and harder to notice. An old wound, a torn limb from a past storm, a hollow cavity, a line of carpenter ants or a shelf of fungus at the base. Anything that has softened or hollowed the wood takes away strength you cannot see from the ground. A tree can look full and green up top while the trunk holding it up is quietly failing.
A heavy, one-sided canopy is the third. Trees that have never been shaped often grow lopsided, reaching toward light and away from the house. All that weight hanging out on one side works like a lever every time the wind pushes on it. The two traits that do the most damage, though, are worth taking one at a time.
Full Summer Canopy and Wind Load
There is a reason more trees come down in July and August than in the dead of winter, even though New Hampshire gets plenty of cold-season wind. In summer the tree is in full leaf, and every one of those leaves is a small sail. A canopy that lets February wind pass straight through becomes a solid wall of surface area in August.
That surface area matters more than most homeowners realize. A fully leafed-out crown can catch several times the wind a bare one does. All of that force travels down through the limbs, into the trunk, and finally into the roots. If any link in that chain is weak, summer is when it gets tested hardest. A dense, un-thinned canopy that has never had wind allowed to move through it is one of the most common setups for failure we see.
Shallow Roots and Saturated Ground
Roots are the anchor, and they only hold as well as the ground they sit in. Some trees are naturally shallow-rooted, spreading wide but not deep. Others were planted in thin soil over ledge, which is common enough around the Monadnock region, and simply never had anywhere to send a deep anchor.
Water changes everything. Summer storms in Keene often arrive after the ground is already soaked, or they dump enough rain in an hour to saturate the soil during the same event that brings the wind. Wet soil grips roots far less firmly than dry soil. That is the classic summer failure. A tree with a wide but shallow root plate, standing in ground turned soft by rain, meets a strong gust against a full canopy, and the whole plate lifts. The tree goes over, roots and all, the way the Osgoods’ maple did.
Common Keene-Area Trees and Their Storm Behavior
People often ask us which kinds of trees are the bad ones. It is a fair question, but the honest answer is that condition matters more than species. A sound tree of a so-called weak type can outlast a neglected tree of a strong one. Still, some general patterns hold true for the trees we see most around Keene.
Eastern white pine is everywhere in this part of New Hampshire, and its height is part of the story. A tall pine catches a lot of wind up high, and in saturated soil it can tip, or it can shed a heavy top or large limbs. Pines are worth watching, especially the tall ones standing close to a house.
Soft maples, like silver and some red maples, grow fast, and fast growth tends to mean weaker wood and more co-dominant stems. They are prone to dropping limbs and splitting at those weak unions. Sugar maples are generally sturdier, but an old one with decay in the trunk is still a real concern, as the Osgoods learned firsthand.
Ash trees deserve their own mention. With emerald ash borer having moved through the region, a lot of ash are dead or dying, and dead ash wood turns brittle fast. A standing dead ash can fail suddenly and drop large pieces, which makes them some of the more dangerous trees to leave near a house or a driveway.
Birch, poplar, and willow all tend toward softer, more flexible wood. Birches often bend and lean rather than snap outright, but a shallow-rooted birch in wet ground can still uproot. Poplars and willows are well known for shedding limbs in a blow.
Oaks and hemlocks round out the common list. Oaks are usually among the stronger, deeper-rooted trees in a yard, though a big oak with a compromised trunk or a huge overextended limb can still do serious damage when it lets go. Hemlocks are shallow-rooted and were often shaded in the forest, so one left standing alone after nearby trees came down can be surprisingly exposed to wind it never used to feel.
The takeaway is not to fear any one species. It is that every tree is an individual. Two white pines in the same yard can be in completely different shape, and the only way to know which one is a problem is to actually look at it.
What Reduces the Risk Before Storm Season
The good news in all of this is that a lot of summer tree failure is preventable. You cannot control the weather, but you can change how a tree meets it. Most of what makes a tree dangerous in wind can be reduced, and the work is far easier and calmer before a storm than after one.
Structural and thinning pruning is the first tool. Selectively thinning a dense canopy lets wind pass through instead of pushing against a solid wall of leaves. Shortening long, heavy, one-sided limbs takes away the long lever the wind pushes against. Correcting a young tree’s structure early, before a weak union becomes a major stem, can prevent the split that would otherwise happen years later. This kind of tree trimming in Keene is not about appearance. It is about giving the tree a shape the wind can move through.
Deadwood removal comes next. Dead limbs are the first things to come down in a storm, and they come down without warning. Clearing them out takes away the loose pieces most likely to land on a roof, a car, or a person, and it gives you a clearer look at the health of the tree underneath.
Removing trees that are past saving is the last step, and sometimes the hardest to accept. A tree with a badly decayed trunk, a major crack, a heavy lean into a soft and lifting root plate, or a dead crown is not a candidate for pruning. Trying to trim your way around serious structural failure only delays the outcome. When a tree has crossed that line, taking it down on a calm day, on your schedule, is far better than letting the next storm decide the timing and the direction it falls.
In practice, trimming and removal work together. Some trees in a yard need shaping, one or two might need to come out, and the rest just need a set of trained eyes on them once in a while. Sorting out which is which is where a real assessment comes in.
How Wilcox Tree Service Reduces Storm Risk in Keene Yards
When homeowners in Keene ask us to look at their trees before storm season, we start with a walk-around. We look at each tree the way a storm would test it, from the roots up. Is the base solid, or is there decay, fungus, or a lifting root plate? Is the trunk sound? Are the main stems joined strongly, or is there a weak, included-bark union waiting to split? Is the canopy balanced, or is all the weight hanging out over the driveway?
From there we sort the trees into plain groups. The healthy ones that just need an eye kept on them. The ones that would benefit from wind-load reduction, where thinning and shortening a few limbs meaningfully lowers the risk. And the ones where the honest call is hazardous tree removal in Keene, NH, because the structure is too far gone to trust near a house or a walkway.
We are not in the business of talking people into work they do not need. If your trees are sound, we would rather tell you that and let you enjoy them. When a tree does need attention, we explain what we see and why, so the decision makes sense to you and is not just us saying so. For the trees that have to come down, we have the equipment to take them apart safely in tight yards, including crane work through Wilcox Crane Service when a tree is too big or too close to a structure to drop the conventional way.
The goal is simple. Fewer surprises when the wind comes. A yard that has been looked over, thinned where it needed it, and cleared of the trees that were never going to make it is a yard that comes through a summer storm in far better shape than one nobody checked.
Worried a tree could come down in the next storm? Call Wilcox Tree Service at 603-363-8197 for a Keene hazard assessment.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Which trees are most likely to fall in a Keene wind storm?
There is no single answer, because condition matters more than species. That said, tall Eastern white pines in saturated soil, fast-growing soft maples with co-dominant stems, and dead or dying ash trees are among the ones we clear most often after summer wind around Keene. Any tree with shallow roots, a heavy one-sided canopy, or decay in the trunk moves up that list. The only reliable way to know is to have the specific trees in your own yard looked at.
- Does a full summer canopy make a tree more likely to fail?
Yes, and it is one of the biggest reasons more trees come down in summer than in winter. In full leaf, a canopy acts like a sail and catches several times the wind that bare branches do. All of that force pushes down through the limbs and trunk and into the roots. A dense, un-thinned crown on a tree with any weakness below is a common setup for summer failure. Thinning that canopy lets wind pass through instead of shoving the whole tree over.
- Can pruning make a tree safer in high wind?
It can, when it is the right kind of pruning. Thinning a dense canopy reduces the wind load, and shortening long, heavy limbs takes away the long lever the wind uses to break them off. Removing deadwood clears out the pieces most likely to fall first. Pruning cannot fix a tree that is already failing at the roots or the trunk, but for a basically sound tree, the right cuts genuinely lower the risk. The key is that it is done with structure in mind, not just looks.
- Why do some trees fall while others nearby stay standing?
Because the wind is the same across the yard, but the trees are not. Two trees a few feet apart can have very different root spread, wood strength, and canopy balance, most of which you cannot see from the ground. The storm applies the same pressure to both and finds the weaker structure. That is why size is not a reliable guide. Failure follows the weak points that were already there, not the biggest tree in the yard.
- Do shallow-rooted trees fail more often in Keene, NH?
They are certainly more vulnerable, especially in wet weather. Roots anchor the tree, and a shallow or one-sided root system has less grip to begin with. Add saturated ground from a summer downpour, which loosens the soil’s hold, plus a full canopy catching the wind, and you have the classic uprooting failure where the whole root plate lifts out of the ground. Thin soil over ledge, common around the Monadnock region, makes shallow rooting more likely for some trees.
- Can Wilcox Tree Service tell me which of my trees are at risk?
Yes. That is exactly what a hazard assessment is for. We walk your property and look at each tree the way a storm would, checking the roots, trunk, stem unions, and canopy balance, then tell you plainly which trees are sound, which would benefit from pruning, and which are past saving. If a tree does need to come out, we can handle the hazardous tree removal safely. Call us at 603-363-8197 to set up a look before the next storm.