Trees Broken, Uprooted, Toppled by Wind

the Beaufort Picnic Area appears to consist of stream-origin alluvial cobbles, pebbles, and perhaps sand, and so not well consolidated, thus perhaps making these trees relatively vulnerable to wind. The snapped-off trees, however, indicate the unusually high intensity of this particular windstorm.

Tom Okey wrote:

My son and I stopped at the Beaufort Picnic Area on the south shore of Cameron Lake on our way to the Alberni Valley on 19 April 2019. We observed many trees that were blown down by the storm of 20 December 2018. Some of these were pushed over and uprooted; others were snapped off. The trees appeared to be a mix of Western Red Cedar (Thuja plicata) and Coast Douglas-Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) based on a casual look during our visit, and based on the inserted photos. The affected trees were also a mixture of small and large trees.

The substratum of the Beaufort Picnic Area appears to consist of stream-origin alluvial cobbles, pebbles, and perhaps sand, and so not well consolidated, thus perhaps making these trees relatively vulnerable uprooting by wind. The snapped-off trees, however, indicate the extreme high intensity of this particular windstorm. This small alluvial fan delta of the Beaufort Picnic Area juts out from the south shore of Cameron Lake into this east-west-elongated lake (5 km long, ~1 km wide), thus increasing its wind exposure and intensity. The trees were blown from west to east indicating winds from the west.

This lake sits at 200 m elevation and is about 5 km northeast of the Port Alberni Summit--a mountain pass at 400 m elevation. The mountains just to the North and West of the Cameron Lake reach 800 m elevation. The winds likely intensified at the Port Alberni Summit, at the tops of the peaks and ridges, and at any wind constriction. Winds are known to intensify at points that jut out along shorelines, such as at the Beaufort Picnic Area.