Pit and Mound topography in hemlock/yellow birch forest by Sandy Lake. Based on the ages of the oldest trees, I speculate that they were formed following a massive windfall during the Saxby Gale (1869) or the Great Storm (1873).
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They might have added tree falls (tipovers, windthrows) to that list.
My spouse looks out the window at our urban forest and at a towering tree on a street one block to the north; she worries that it may fall to the southwest and on our house and asked me what I thought. “I don’t think we have to worry, at least this time around” I said. “Why”, she asked. I said “Because I looked at the tree, it is about 3.5 ft diameter and looks very healthy; it has already survived Juan and Dorian and right now it looks as though this storm will not be worse than Dorian and nowhere near Juan in ferocity; and finally, even if the winds blow it over, it is likely to fall towards the west or north and not towards us.
“Why do you think so?” she asked. “I have been thinking about windblown NS forests” I said. Read more on Nova Scotia Forest Notes