A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
990 entries
blowdown
An area of forest where trees have been knocked flat by wind — a catastrophic windthrow event, sometimes affecting thousands of acres. A blowdown turns a vertical forest horizontal in minutes. The fallen trunks lie parallel, all pointing the same direction, recording the wind’s path like compass needles.
Etymology
English compound of blow (Old English blāwan, “to blow, of wind”) + down (Old English dūne, “downward”).