You could see ‘exploding trees’ in the winter storm. Here’s why that happens.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - There’s a viral claim going around that “exploding trees are possible in the Midwest and Northern Plains” this weekend as sub-zero temperatures creep in from the winter storm. But is that really true?

Kind of.

One of WVLT sister station WSMV4’s meteorologists, Stefano DiPietro, explained that wind chills could reach -50 degrees Fahrenheit in the Northern Plains in the coming days.

“These trees don’t exactly explode,” he explained. “What happens is that water and sap that’s inside of these trees actually rapidly expands because of the freezing, because of how rapidly that temperature is dropping.”

That sudden freezing causes trees to rupture and crack.

“It can be very loud, it can clearly be heard,” he said.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources also put out an explanation, saying what you may hear “are the boom or pop of ‘frost cracks,’ which are vertical cracks in the wood caused by rapid temperature drop when the water and sap in the phloem and xylem freeze and expand.”

Citing forest health experts, the department said that trees with thin bark, like maples and birch, are more susceptible to the bursts, but that “damage is rarely deadly to the tree.”