The dude in the plow truck is lucky his exhaust pipe didn't ignite any of them. Picture being in the middle of that pile of dry tumbleweeds when they're on fire.
Fun fact: the old westerns showing cowboys in shootouts with tumble weed is fake. Tumble weed is an invasive species from Russia that was introduced in the mid-1800s and didn't spread widely until the later 1800s
We’ve got a ton on the road to my house (but they’re the mustard variety). I just run them over to break them up but there’s some piled up by the garage. guess I’ll have to just bag em
I'm fairly certain this was a long-game strategy by the Russians. It's too cold in Siberia for them to propagate, but introducing seeds into a perfect climate for them to proliferate seems like a good strategy in the long run. It just gums everything up, making even daily tasks frustrating and causing fire hazards. It's almost biological warfare, but not something you can blame on any one regime. Pretty diabolical.
This is caused by poor land management, especially with clearing land and then abandoning/ not maintaining it. With the native plants cleared out, the tumbleweeds often take over and cause this.
to my understanding, nah. the tumbleweeds are horrible and powerfull, taking over land at a crazy and impossible to control speed. "trouble with tumbles" is a fun vid on the topic
Tumbleweed is an invasive species that the US's been trying to get rid of for decades. Even having ONE tumbleweed survive and roll around can mean that in a year you'll get a swarm. For better explanations, CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsWr_JWTZss
I remember somebody drove over one of these on a road trip and it got caught in his undercarriage and against the hot manifold and the whole car burned
Another cyclist and I began clearing a path on a Utah bike path overpass completely filled with tumbleweeds yesterday. We found a tent in the middle, with a homeless man just waking up, unaware.
I travel a lot for work and tumble weeds are becoming insanely problematic in some places. They build up and they spread a lot. Windy places get hit the worst.
When I was in ABQ, NM. There were tons of tumble weeds, I was driving there for work in the company truck and had the most fun ride of my life. I blasted through so many and the trucks paint was completely fucked
Arizona, Albuquerque, Utah..... Basically any southwestern state. Things are a goddamn nightmare, and yes (as someone else pointed out), they are extremely flammable.
Could be Tri Cities, WA. We had a major state highway outside of town shut down completely by tumbleweeds a few years back. DOT had to bring out the snow plows.
For sure. I just remember watching the smoke roll in that evening and fires getting course enough to Portland that I was starting to feel uneasy… in combination with thick, acrid smoke. Good times.
Used to live in Spring Creek (just outside of Elko) when I was a kid, and when we moved to the Midwest, when I would tell other kids about them, they thought tumble weeds were just from cartoons.
I know Spring Creek and Elko well. I worked for a couple years at the Cortez mine on the other side of Carlin. I lived in Reno so I was on I-80 constantly. One fall there was a big wind storm after a dry summer. There was a parcel of fenced land along the highway that was catching all the tumble weeds. It was like a pool of them that went on for miles! All I thought at the time was if it caught on fire it would've been unstoppable!!!
Tbh? It’s almost impossible. You wait for the wind to do it or shove them out of the way. They are extremely invasive. They came over from Russia. It’s unknown if it was because some idiot Russian missed them and had them shipped or a few seeds got trapped in clothes & they spawned. You could burn all of Utah to a cinder and if 3 seeds lived they could just take over again.
eppykaze
Quite the crop you have this year
RetrogradeLlama
Kuel.
ILikeFood2000
ProfessorDumbass
Arsonists can be very lazy there
ViewDriver
*lights cigarette*
Sludgesoda
The dude in the plow truck is lucky his exhaust pipe didn't ignite any of them. Picture being in the middle of that pile of dry tumbleweeds when they're on fire.
Thresholdpush
I've only seen them get this bad twice in Southern Alberta. I lived out there for 17 years.
TheHuntedSnark
jamadrien
sircowdog
I was just thinking it's what a planet would look like if destroyed by tribbles.
Thorketil
I just thought of that too!
FromTheBeyond
When they’re in your yard like that, what the heck do you do?
NFLemons
Pasco?
maelstromverbae
Daybreak Utah
woozle
I love tumbleweed mating season.
Puvaradivi
I hope kids are getting tumbleweed days off at school.
davidseavey726
Utah?
HufflePuffPuff
We are fucked
SmartAverageBear
From Russia with love
GoodEveningThisIsWhatAButtDoesPBBPPBBTT
Tumbleweeds are actually an invasive species to the US too
YuffieK
Could be worse i guess
ILikeFood2000
Yessss!!!
BossVarriack
MY CABBAGES!
PostalHeathen
Making that physics engine work for its pay, I see.
oprondek1978
I’ve seen it this bad all over northern Nevada
ThatGuyFromJustSouthOfTheMiddleOfNowhere
Fun fact: the old westerns showing cowboys in shootouts with tumble weed is fake. Tumble weed is an invasive species from Russia that was introduced in the mid-1800s and didn't spread widely until the later 1800s
CitrusyGarlic
It's kudzu in the southeast, tumbleweed in the southwest, blackberries in the northwest, and zebra mussels in the northeast
PostalHeathen
Well, that's terrifying.
petresun
Supet invasive. Horrible for the mid-west.
RonMimnaugh
tribbles
NZSheeps
Could be worse
BladeTurMoiL
Ronald mcdonald when he removed the mcrib from mcdonalds menu. Colorized and animated.
Turboslacker
So one spark and your house is incinerated?
petpet3d
Basically yes
Turboslacker
Yikes!
iamlegendinjapan
My neighborhood yesterday. Central Utah. It snowed 5" an hour after I took this pic
feryooday
What do you even do?
iamlegendinjapan
Pray it blows away
feryooday
We’ve got a ton on the road to my house (but they’re the mustard variety). I just run them over to break them up but there’s some piled up by the garage. guess I’ll have to just bag em
iamlegendinjapan
These are Russian thistles they are sharp
iamlegendinjapan
My HOA cleaned it up.
welluhwhatdoyouwantmetosay
Russian invaders.
petresun
I'm fairly certain this was a long-game strategy by the Russians. It's too cold in Siberia for them to propagate, but introducing seeds into a perfect climate for them to proliferate seems like a good strategy in the long run. It just gums everything up, making even daily tasks frustrating and causing fire hazards. It's almost biological warfare, but not something you can blame on any one regime. Pretty diabolical.
LostAdonis
Under rated comment.
Minebadger
This is caused by poor land management, especially with clearing land and then abandoning/ not maintaining it. With the native plants cleared out, the tumbleweeds often take over and cause this.
theskepticinme
I think it’s caused by effective survival strategy! What a way to spread your seed
UniqueUsername87692
They should just go out with a rake and clear them up or something...
Anyone know where I can get orange dye?
dezzy435
This particular scene was caused by the most massive windstorm we've seen in decades. Source- I live here. These things could be from miles away.
Slash0mega
to my understanding, nah. the tumbleweeds are horrible and powerfull, taking over land at a crazy and impossible to control speed. "trouble with tumbles" is a fun vid on the topic
ravnicrasol
Tumbleweed is an invasive species that the US's been trying to get rid of for decades.
Even having ONE tumbleweed survive and roll around can mean that in a year you'll get a swarm.
For better explanations, CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsWr_JWTZss
MrSnuffleupagus172
/gallery/o7fv1zD/comment/2383117921
TheMeats
Not to mention that tumbleweeds are an invasive species introduced from Russia.
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/tumbleweeds-fastest-plant-invasion-in-usa-history.html
drowninginthesouth
Is this what we're calling the repubs now?
Jmarie453
Learned something new today, thank you!
I will from here forward call these tumblekremlins.
MapleSyrupMafia
Well maybe we should import something that eats them, no way this could backfire in any way... /s
CorndogHead
This seems very flammable.
stronomer
Just wanted to say, set them on fire and see what will happen. Please just not on the same continent as I am on right now, thank you.
geekyfarmer
Crazy flammable. If they pack in around buildings and catch fire it's big trouble.
MrWolfwood
I'm no mechanic but most houses on fire are big trouble
MarcoPoloOnPollo
I'm no cardiologist, but anything that catches fire and then rolls around is big trouble.
thatwoodguy
I remember somebody drove over one of these on a road trip and it got caught in his undercarriage and against the hot manifold and the whole car burned
SingleActionArmy
dentista320
Cant just burn it? /s
BobTheWeak
Congratulations! It's a... massive fire!
alpacasaurusrex
It’s also the only way to really eradicate them. They’re not native to this or South America.
BubblesTheFish
Flammenbursher
WammoJammo
They are Very flammable.
AllTheGoodOnesWereGone
And simultaneously inflammable.
Ausmerica
The opposite of uninflammable, that's for sure.
Mynamedoesntmatteronlylifematters
CPG Grey does an awesome video about tumbleweeds
https://youtu.be/hsWr_JWTZss?si=18UhmsKmokHtMNhh
TheHuntedSnark
That is, indeed, both awesome to see and terrifying to know.
Kakeukh
Not to correct you, but they are actually inflammable.
OOAKIapparel
Inflammable means flammable? What a country!
IdRatherBeOnThePlaystation
Both are true
Kakeukh
I did mention that I wasn't correcting anything. Nyah!
sekanna
Where is this? I've seen em bad Ina few spots around here but that's insane
maelstromverbae
Daybreak in the Salt Lake Valley
AutoContrarian
Another cyclist and I began clearing a path on a Utah bike path overpass completely filled with tumbleweeds yesterday. We found a tent in the middle, with a homeless man just waking up, unaware.
ForFOXSake18
Can confirm Utah. It's been fucking wimdy.
ognar
The worst disaster to ever hit the US, and all caused by Russia
gardenias
I travel a lot for work and tumble weeds are becoming insanely problematic in some places. They build up and they spread a lot. Windy places get hit the worst.
PonyMadness
It's wind season here in New Mexico and this is a constant problem all through March and April.
duncanidah0
South Jordan, Utah
YouWereSupposedToBeBulletPoints
South Jordan is built up way more than what this video looks like, no?
TiddyMcGillicuddy
Southwest Faron on a cliff near the border of the Lanayru Region
theraininspainfallsmainlyontheplain
Gerudo canyon, north pass
xcelita
Tumbleweed is called Russian Thistle. It's been invasive in the US for over a hundred years. As it rolls, it spreads its seeds.
TheOneAndOnlyButtStabber
When I was in ABQ, NM. There were tons of tumble weeds, I was driving there for work in the company truck and had the most fun ride of my life. I blasted through so many and the trucks paint was completely fucked
mingothejedi
Arizona, Albuquerque, Utah..... Basically any southwestern state. Things are a goddamn nightmare, and yes (as someone else pointed out), they are extremely flammable.
PonyMadness
New Mexico gets so little credit, our state is now just Albuquerque...
theoriginalandbestddps
Tell the truth or there will be consequences
oliharris19697
Population of truth and consequences is really small compared to burque.
volock
Loving ABQ getting statehood... As someone who grew up there
Animatronio
Could be Tri Cities, WA. We had a major state highway outside of town shut down completely by tumbleweeds a few years back. DOT had to bring out the snow plows.
PTFCMcGee
Did that happen during the Labor Day wind storm in 2020 that turned the west coast into a fiery hellscape?
Animatronio
Yeah that sounds about right. Luckily the tumbleweeds didn't go alight around the people trapped in them on 240.
PTFCMcGee
For sure. I just remember watching the smoke roll in that evening and fires getting course enough to Portland that I was starting to feel uneasy… in combination with thick, acrid smoke. Good times.
103Brewer
I believe this is central Utah.
sjester42
Damn, I figured it was southern Nevada right now, we got the same thing going on right now with the wind
HavocWraith
Very southern Utah. Certainly more like Nevada.
Motosapien
Northern Nevada checking in, we have tumble weeds but that's way to flat to be anywhere up here.
marshmallowcommando
Used to live in Spring Creek (just outside of Elko) when I was a kid, and when we moved to the Midwest, when I would tell other kids about them, they thought tumble weeds were just from cartoons.
Motosapien
I know Spring Creek and Elko well. I worked for a couple years at the Cortez mine on the other side of Carlin. I lived in Reno so I was on I-80 constantly. One fall there was a big wind storm after a dry summer. There was a parcel of fenced land along the highway that was catching all the tumble weeds. It was like a pool of them that went on for miles! All I thought at the time was if it caught on fire it would've been unstoppable!!!
stupidbastardinutah
Looks like either the Daybreak neighborhood in southwest Salt Lake county or out in Eagle Mountain west of Lehi, where some of Footloose was filmed.
kickmyballsrealhard
Kick off your Sunday shoes
OverwhelmingSurplusOfDiggity
Definitely wait until the tumbleweed is all cleared out first.
maelstromverbae
It's Daybreak
iamlegendinjapan
My neighborhood in central UT yesterday. Then it snowed 5" on them an hour after I took this pic.
RolandleFartere
That’s crazy as shit!
Whenthepiecesaresmalltaketwo
I live in Idaho and have never seen anything like this! How do you remove them?
alpacasaurusrex
Tbh? It’s almost impossible. You wait for the wind to do it or shove them out of the way. They are extremely invasive. They came over from Russia. It’s unknown if it was because some idiot Russian missed them and had them shipped or a few seeds got trapped in clothes & they spawned. You could burn all of Utah to a cinder and if 3 seeds lived they could just take over again.
MrSnuffleupagus172
/gallery/o7fv1zD/comment/2383117921