Trees most susceptible to storm damage

Usually for me its just the maples that have trouble with high winds. I almost wonder if it has something to do with leaf shape.

 

Big limbs often snap off red oaks and red oaks can get stump rot which travels up the stump and the trees eventually snap in a storm at around 5 or 6 feet from the ground. Carpenter ants often take advantage of the soft heartwood becoming soft with the rot if they find a way in.
Eastern white pines often tip over and due to their shallow roots take a good portion of the ground up as well. Often when the ground has become overly saturated with rain. I've found white pines that snapped off 20 feet up the trunk though, so they don't always just tip over.

In the swamp, it's not uncommon to watch a red maple slowly tip over, sometimes taking years, as a root (or two) slowly loses its grip on one side of the tree, usually as they approach their mature size and become rather top heavy.

We have a few Atlantic White Cedar (not eastern white cedar) and they unfortunately sometimes lose their tops, sometimes far enough down the trunk that the tree is done in.

 

Mostly oaks here will blow over or split apart, like this big one did. Each stem was 28-30" in dia...had a little rot at the bottom. Each side fell about a week apart.

In the late summer/fall, pecan trees take a pounding with thunder storm winds and heavy nut loads. Also the way they grow/pruned for production, doesn't help...
This limb from another pecan tree was over 45' long
Occasionally we find a hickory like this, very bushy top, weak spot on the trunk, just twisted around.

 

Some quality BTU's there Jeff !!!

 

How did you get that limb by the chair down ?

 

Like a squirrel...lol
JK...I left it alone for a couple weeks. The wind finished breaking it away from the tree. I then took the grapple on the tractor, grabbed a bigger limb close to the ground, and slowly backed away from the tree. As it started to fall, I released the grip on the limb.
The other picture is a different tree. It was already on the ground

 

We had a big storm come through back in October. Leaves were still on all the oaks so we had over a dozen snap off their tops. Plus we had 4 oaks up rooted. Crazy storm we usually loose a pine or two but rarely a oak. Good thing that came out of it I decided to finally retire so I will have the time to process wood.

 

At my old place I had 3 acres, a couple huge oaks, shagbark hickory,hard maple, ash, walnut, black locust a sycamore tree. They were all equally at dropping limbs except the sycamore. Rarely did I pick up a limb.

 

Bradford pears are generally not a very durable tree.
Popular for landscaping as they grow fast but once they get big they start falling apart.

 

Silver maple and Bradford Pear are the worst in my area.

Last Memorial Day. Silver Maple nailed my garage and my wood pile!

 

That sucks. Looks like a biggun too.

 

Yes, it was a big chunk... The broken piece was 36" in diameter a few feet out from the break, and the entire piece was 98' long, with a lot of big limbs. Took until mid-August to get all of the repair work done through insurance. I got a new roof out of it though. The actual trunk missed the garage by about 4 feet, but several large limbs did hit the garage. And, I had to restack almost 4 cords of my stacks that it fell on! At least I got to add a little to the stacks!