What Middle-Earth-like events have you seen?

[Deimos]

Being in Australia, large fires are not uncommon. The smoke from a distant fire covers the sky high enough so that you can't really smell it, but as it is different from clouds, the sun shines weirdly through it. The sun itself remains unseen and everything turns an even golden yellow colour, so you can't tell where in the sky the light is coming from. Like the light is yellow, things that are normally coloured blue for example, will be closer to grey. It reminds me of some artist's rendition of the light of Laurelin when it is shining alone.

Though, as an aside, I do wonder whether the increase in huge fires in other countries too may be partially due to eucalyptus trees. They are a native Australian tree, and as such they have been a normal part of the ecosystem for a long time. We also have animals and insects that are able to feed on eucalyptus. In recent history, these trees have been planted overseas in a variety of places, and like the eucalyptus oil is so strong and toxic, the native animals and insects there will not touch them. And they seem to have been proliferating wildly, maybe because the other trees there can't compete with them.
The thing with eucalyptus oil is that the trees hold a lot of it, and it is highly flammable. Eucalyptus trees spread fire quickly, as when they start burning, the oil heats up and explodes out of the tree. Anything the burning oil and wood pieces hit can then catch on fire, and the exploding means the flames can jump across roads. So it looks like people have unwittingly brought some Australian 'weather' with them...

View attachment 26025
^ Some 'candlebark' eucalyptus. They are called that because they are constantly shedding their bark like melting wax from a candle. The remaining new white bark is smooth and hard like stone. You can't pull the tree's bark off unless it has already decided it wants to drop it!
Eucalyptus trees in general do have a bit of a mind of their own, which makes me think of the trees in the Lord of the Rings. In summer, when there is less water to go around, they drop some of their largest branches so they don't have to maintain them. It happens without warning, so you need to be careful walking around, especially if it's windy, as you might get a branch the size of a small tree coming down on your head. The branches and tree are still healthy and not dead or dry looking, so there's no sign of anything until you hear the creaking.

We have eucalyptus in Arizona low deserts but we don't have fires in the low deserts .
At higher elevations 1800-2000 ft (600m) the cold would kill them.
But this is AZ .... I don't know about Texas or other states that may have them.

Amendment: We do have fires but it's scrub brush and small pinion.
Eucaplyptus does not grow wild in the low desert.

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

The remaining new white bark is smooth and hard like stone.

Ah, I forgot about this stunning picture of an entirely smooth white tree that I took myself!

 

[Vorondil]

Though, as an aside, I do wonder whether the increase in huge fires in other countries too may be partially due to eucalyptus trees. They are a native Australian tree, and as such they have been a normal part of the ecosystem for a long time. We also have animals and insects that are able to feed on eucalyptus. In recent history, these trees have been planted overseas in a variety of places, and like the eucalyptus oil is so strong and toxic, the native animals and insects there will not touch them. And they seem to have been proliferating wildly, maybe because the other trees there can't compete with them.

Eucalyptus aren't to big of a problem here, the natural bush is the fire hazard, its incredibly thick and dry, you can't imagine how thick it really is, until you've tried to walk through it. Its so dense that I've sometimes been able to walk half a meter off the ground.

 

[Olorgando]

Though, as an aside, I do wonder whether the increase in huge fires in other countries too may be partially due to eucalyptus trees. They are a native Australian tree, and as such they have been a normal part of the ecosystem for a long time. We also have animals and insects that are able to feed on eucalyptus. In recent history, these trees have been planted overseas in a variety of places, and like the eucalyptus oil is so strong and toxic, the native animals and insects there will not touch them. And they seem to have been proliferating wildly, maybe because the other trees there can't compete with them.
The thing with eucalyptus oil is that the trees hold a lot of it, and it is highly flammable. Eucalyptus trees spread fire quickly, as when they start burning, the oil heats up and explodes out of the tree. Anything the burning oil and wood pieces hit can then catch on fire, and the exploding means the flames can jump across roads. So it looks like people have unwittingly brought some Australian 'weather' with them...

Yes, I've seen at least one documentary about problems in Portugal with eucalyptus trees. Seems they're fast growers - the ones introduced into some region of Portugal, anyway - which is always dangerous around the "greed is good & faster, faster, faster" set. And it involved subsidies, I think, by the EU. The natural vegetation there was probably slow-growing - but on the other hand fire-resistant. As the eucalyptus were probably introduced in a dry area of Portugal - plenty of those on the Iberian Peninsula as a whole - which have become even drier, the problems with fires there have literally exploded.