Fallen Trees After a Storm in Amsterdam

Just as we thought we were getting into the high twenties that characterise summer temperatures in the Netherlands, the weather decided to spring a trick on us. Last week there were a series of storms over two days, which caused damage and flooding throughout the Netherlands. The damage led to an unexpected discovery too, when police officers discovered a massive cocaine lab in a barn in Zeeland that was damaged by a falling tree.

In Amsterdam, people woke up on Thursday morning to big trees that had been torn from their roots due to the storm’s ferocity the previous evening. As I walked along the Herengracht after work that same day, I saw sawn-up tree trunks lain in piles.

Pieces of a fallen tree neatly cut up and stacked on the side of a canal in Amsterdam.
Neatly-cut sections of a fallen tree trunk arranged in a pile along a canal
Cut pieces of fallen tree piled up, revealing cross section of trunk.
The same logs from another angle, showing the cross sections of the trunks

It’s quite a shame, really, since these are mature trees. Even if a replacement tree(ling) were planted, it wouldn’t grow to a similar height within a few years. I’m interested in how the municipality deals with this.

Cyclist passing a tree whose damaged upper half has been sawn off.

Where some saw damage, others saw opportunity. I saw some teenagers walking along the length of a fallen trunk and taking selfies. The tree had also fallen on a boat, so I hope the latter hasn’t sustained any substantial damage. It doesn’t look like it from the photo, though.

A person walking on trunk that has fallen on a boat.
A person walks on a trunk of a tree that’s fallen into an Amsterdam canal because this doesn’t happen too often
A fallen tree's trunk and branches in a canal.
View of the same fallen tree from afar

The weather patterns this time of year are nothing short of confusing. Last year’s summer was very warm and dry, but what we have this year is plenty of rain and wind. What’s confusing about this is that, just a week ago, the weather was above 20 degrees and sunny.

I don’t know what to expect from the weather. Last Friday, the skies were so grey in the morning that if I’d made a photo of the clouds I would’ve easily been able to claim that the photo was made in February. The clouds were that grey – in June.

I committed a silly mistake while making these photos in that my camera was set to JPEG only even though I shoot in RAW. I was somewhat miffed that I hadn’t checked my settings but decided to publish them here anyway – after making some minor adjustments. Fortunately the photos were also already processed via the in-camera settings, which made them more presentable.