We now know true magnitude of 2020’s ‘tumbleweed avalanche’ that trapped cars in WA state

Here’s one unexpected way that 2020 may be remembered at the Hanford nuclear reservation — the year of the tumbleweed.

Hanford workers at Mission Support Alliance collected and burned enough tumbleweeds to cover a football field to about 40 feet deep.

There were enough tumbleweeds to fill almost 26 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Hanford Mission Integration Solutions, which has succeeded Mission Support Alliance at Hanford, reports that workers burned nearly 84,700 cubic yards of the prickly weeds in 2020.

In the previous five years, Hanford site workers burned an average of less than a third of that — 22,355 cubic yards a year.

The year 2020 got off to a bad start for tumbleweeds, when the wind kicked up on New Year’s Eve 2019 and blew enough tumbleweeds across Highway 240 to close the highway for 10 hours.

Plow trucks usually used for snow were brought in to clear the roadway.

The highway northwest of Richland runs between the secure boundary of the Hanford production area and the land to the southwest that has remained undeveloped since it was carved out as a security zone for the nuclear reservation.

The tumbleweeds buried a semi truck and drivers abandoned four cars along the highway. Washington State Patrol troopers spent 10 hours digging the cars and semi-truck out from under piles of tumbleweeds.

News of the “Tumblegeddon” spread around the world. The British Daily Mail called it a tumbleweed avalanche.

And the New York Times referred to them as “nuclear tumbleweeds,” keying on the Hanford nuclear reservation location.

The 32 inches of snow in the winter of 2018-19, which is more than double normal, followed by a rainy spring is to blame.

The precipitation soaked the soil at the Hanford site, creating perfect conditions for a bumper crop of Russian thistle that dried into tumbleweeds.

This story was originally published March 25, 2021 at 12:56 PM with the headline "We now know true magnitude of 2020’s ‘tumbleweed avalanche’ that trapped cars in WA state."