Nature
PUBLISHED
Utah and Nevada, USA, have been hit by high winds this week, causing a ridiculous number of tumbleweeds to engulf the cars, buildings, and streets in what is being called "tumblemageddon".
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Severe weather and 70 miles-per-hour wind sent tumbleweeds to Utah and Nevada, causing pileups of the plants in front of residents' homes, with many catching the onslaught on film. One resident found a pile of tumbleweeds 3 meters (10 feet) high piled outside their garage.
“Luckily, it’s something we can handle,” Rachel Van Cleave, communications manager for South Jordan, Utah, told KSLTV. “This is not our first tumblemegaddon."
Russian thistle (Salsola tragus), as the alternative name for tumbleweed suggests, is not native to the USA. It was introduced in the 1870s in Bonhomme County, South Dakota, likely in contaminated flax seed shipped in from the Russian empire. The plant's seed dispersal mechanism did the rest of the work spreading the invasive species around the country.
As tumbleweeds dry out at the end of their life cycle, they can detach at the base in winds, which sends them rolling for kilometers around. As they roll, bounce, and fill up people's driveways, the spiky plants also drop their seeds. They have been both a fun way to let people know that their joke didn't land, and an annoyance to anyone trying to get to work after particularly high winds, ever since.
