Fall Storm Season Is Coming: How to Get Boise Trees Ready Before the Wind Picks Up
Every September, the same pattern shows up in our call volume: a quiet summer, then a string of wind-advisory days in late September and October, and suddenly our schedule fills with storm-damage calls that could have been prevented with a fall inspection. If you haven't had your trees looked at since spring, now is the window to do it.
Why fall wind is different from a summer thunderstorm gust
A quick summer microburst hits a tree that's still fully leafed out and flexible. By late September, many of Boise's mature shade trees - especially silver maple, Siberian elm, and cottonwood - have accumulated a full season of growth weight in their canopy, and any deadwood from summer heat stress hasn't been cleared out yet. When a sustained wind event moves through the valley, that combination of canopy weight and old deadwood is exactly what fails first.
What to walk your yard and look for this week
- Dead or bare branches still hanging in an otherwise leafed-out canopy
- Any branch that's visibly cracked, or a trunk with a vertical seam or split
- A tree that leans noticeably more than it did last year, especially after this summer's irrigation changes or a wet spring
- A one-sided canopy - heavy growth on one side of the tree with little on the other - which creates uneven wind loading
- Mushrooms or fungal conks at the base of the trunk, a sign of root or trunk decay you can't see from above
If you spot any of these, don't wait for the first wind advisory of the season to do something about it. Structural pruning and deadwood removal now, while conditions are calm, is far safer and cheaper than an emergency call after a limb is already down on your fence or roof. Our tree trimming and pruning service is exactly this kind of preventive work.
If something does come down mid-storm
Know the split in who handles what before you need it: debris and downed limbs on your own property are yours to call in (that's us, any time of day); anything blocking a public street goes to Ada County Highway District; and anything tangled in power lines is Idaho Power's to de-energize before anyone touches it. Full detail is on our storm damage tree removal page, including how insurance claims typically work when a tree damages a structure.
We're seeing this show up most often right now in Collister and North Boise (83703), where a lot of the street canopy is mature cottonwood and elm planted decades ago - if that's your neighborhood, it's worth moving an inspection up your list.