weathering the winter, and keeping an eye on lumber prices

Howdy, friends:

Spring doesn’t begin until March 20th. That means we’ve got roughly 1.5 months left of winter.

Chances of snow and cold weather

Historical data shows that average temps in Seattle tend to warm slightly each month from January to March, with the average low being in the high 30’s.

Weather.gov provides a one-month forecast for the region, which indicates that the temperature is “leaning toward” below average.

As Western Washingtonians well know, the right weather conditions for snow are rare around here. However, it’s not unheard of for the “Wet” Side to get more than one snowfall in a winter. Either way, it’s likely that we’ll see a fair amount of cold weather yet.

That means the standard winter concerns about trees still apply:

• Water is scarce when temps get below freezing, which can lead to dehydration for trees
• Cold weather makes tree wood brittle, and prone to splitting and cracking
• Wind, rain and snow put a physical strain on weakened trees
• Trees are in hibernation mode, living on reserves, and are particularly vulnerable
• Weak/damaged trees are dangerous to you, and your trees might need a little extra care to stay healthy through the winter.

The point is, winter is a time to keep a close eye on trees and make sure they’re not becoming a liability to you, your family, or your property.

Also note that rocksalt won’t help your trees with the dehydration issue. It just so happens that we use rocksalt on driveways and roads right when trees need water most – when all the moisture is frozen. When the moisture thaws, its washes the salt down through the soil and dehydrates the roots of already-thirsty trees.

A note about lumber prices

Lumber prices remain high, which means that tree removal can be profitable for certain trees. You can read this article for info on selling your trees for money.

Trading Economics is a resource for tracking the price of lumber futures. A month ago, the report for late November/early December said:

“Lumber is expected to trade at 908.79 USD/1000 board feet by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations.”

So how did that projection age?

Futures traded at as high as 1,130 in the waning days of Q4. But this is the nature of economic projections (if somebody gets it exactly right, they got lucky). What they did get right was that the price continued the upward trend it’s been on since mid-November.

To what do they attribute the high prices? To something we might as well label “the Covid trifecta” at this point: high demand, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages. The same three conditions that are allegedly behind every shortage and every price increase of the last two years.

This is bad news for those who need to buy lumber, because it means the low-end buying opportunity might have passed you by. The forecast for the current quarter indicates that prices are likely to hold:

“Lumber is expected to trade at 1017.47 USD/1000 board feet by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate it to trade at 1427.98 in 12 months time.”

On the other hand, it’s great news for homeowners looking to sell trees for money. With timber going for unprecedented prices, you might make more than it costs you to remove prime timber trees. We’ve had several customers over the last year subsidize the cost of removal by selling their trees, and even some that have hired us to remove their trees just so they could sell them.

If you want to know more about what, exactly, lumber futures can tell you, we recommend this article.

Need firewood?

If your firewood store has been depleted, we can prescribe two methods for replenishing it:

1. remove dangerous or annoying trees and saw them up for firewood
2. request firewood on Chipdrop

New content on the STC blog

We published two new articles last month:

• Can stumps be alive without growing foliage? Rare cases defy what we think we know about trees.
• Cottonwoods: Western WA’s most dangerous tree. An extra wary eye is recommended for homeowners with cottonwoods in their yard. See why in this article.