Why do trees make cracking sounds in the winter?

[MNDEM2004]

My large elm tree in the backyard is making strange cracking sounds. It is about -11degrees outside with a strong 30-40 mph wind. It sounds like the tree is going to fall down. Should I be worried?

[Droopy]

1. Because they are cold and brittle

When spring rolls around they will sound like the voices of angels whispering through satin. But now is the time of death and that is Satan's domain.

[Zoigal]

10. You are a poetic soul, Droopy.

Lovely description of trees in the spring. z

[Generic Brad]

2. They only make that noise when they are plotting to kill you

I would post a sentinel lumberjack in the front yard just to yell "timber" as a precaution if I were you.

[XemaSab]

4. Robert Frost knows where you're coming from:

THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM

She had no saying dark enough 35
For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands
That with every futile pass 40
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
Before the mystery of glass!

It never had been inside the room,
And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream 45
Of what the tree might do.

[Generic Brad]

6. I'm speechless

That is a beautiful poem.

[XemaSab]

7. Frost was a brilliant poet.

A scary poet, but brilliant. :D

[RushIsRot]

3. Would YOU hum an Irish jig in that temperature? I'll bet your tree

wants inside!

[qnr]

5. Frozen sap cracking as it makes the bends into various limbs & branches?

Someone left an AM radio in the trunk? Incidently, if it makes cracking sounds in the spring, are they somehow not strange? :hi:

[MnFats]

8. they are popping like gunfire here....and

...on the pond not far away, I can here the ice cracking as it expands beyond the ability of the lake to hold it.
sounds like thunder sometimes.

bizarre night here.

[Sugar Smack]

9. Oooh, they did that in "The Blair Witch Project" too. Be afraid.

Be very afraid.:P

Seriously though, I've experienced the same thing (hearing cracking trees in winter wind) and it sounded threatening but never was.

[Cleveland Rocks]

11. (Apologies to Joyce Kilmer)

I think that I shall never see
A monster as scary as a demon tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against its victim's bleeding chest

It's winter when you hear these fiends
- Abominations out of Tolkien -

These trees can give you quite a scare
When they pounce on you unaware;

Like Old Man Willow in Lord of the Rings
Or some undead beast of Stephen King's

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only a demon can possess a tree.

[Cleveland Rocks]

13. I almost forgot, last but not least,

The demon tree in Poltergeist.

[Jamastiene]

12. When it gets below freezing, the moisture

in the tree's "circulatory" system freezes. You can take this as a sign from your trees. They are trying to tell you




























I'M FUCKING COLD, GIVE ME A COAT, DAMMIT!!!

:P
:rofl:

[Orsino]

14. Heh. Look that tree right in the knothole, and ask...

"Why the hell did you wear leaves all summer, and then drop 'em just when it got cool? Didn't you learn anything the year before, or the year before that?"