Tumbling tumbleweeds roll into town as winds rip West

Tumbleweed is sprawling across sidewalks. It is blowing across freeways. It is stacked up – feet high – against homes in Utah and Nevada.

The masses upon masses of prickly tumbleweed are more fallout from severe weather sweeping the western United States, in which wind gusts over 60 mph destroyed infrastructure and downed trees and power lines.

Armed with brooms, shovels and rakes, residents in the city of South Jordan in Salt Lake County, Utah, attempted to brush the streets free from the spiky invaders.

“We’ve had a few tumbleweeds, but nothing like this,”John Young told local station KSL TV.“It’s absolutely crazy.”

Young said he woke up Saturday to find his entire front porch covered in the spiky weeds.“There’s nothing to do but laugh.”

The city of South Jordan in a Facebook update detailed several locations where people could dispose of tumbleweeds that landed on their property: “Our Streets crews are running the dumpsters to the landfill as soon as they get full and bringing them back,” the post said. City officials also rolled in, driving specialist equipment through the streets to clear the weeds.

Tumbleweeds, native to dry regions throughout Europe and central Asia, are thought to have arrived in North America in the 1870s when its seeds tucked inside a shipment of flaxseed imported from what was then the Russian Empire, according to the Natural History Museum in Britain.

The ball-shaped plant has“needle-like leaves” and can grow to more than 3 feet tall before it breaks away from its root, beginning to roll wherever the wind takes it, the museum said. Though the plant is dead, it disperses living seeds as it tumbles, allowing it to“spread prolifically.”