Planning A Fall Foliage Trip Is Tricky In 2023 — Here’s How To Time It Just Right

22.08.2023 - 11:57 / forbes.com

With a month until the official start of autumn, leaf peepers are already eagerly plotting their fall foliage trips with fingers crossed that they get the timing right. A weekend too early or too late, and you’ll miss the most dazzling colors.

To catch a show of truly blockbuster color, the year has to unfold just right. Ideally, there should be a long-lasting snowpack in the winter, followed by a wet spring and a Goldilocks summer that’s neither too hot nor too humid. And then, autumn must deliver bright, sunny days and cold, crisp nights.

Unfortunately, that’s not how 2023 has played out in many parts of the country, according to Jim Salge, a former a meteorologist at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire and the current foliage expert at Yankee magazine.

Last summer’s drought will impact this season’s color forecast, along with what Salge calls “significant weather high-impact days” earlier in the year. In New England, there were three of note in 2023. The first was February 4, when an arctic cold front pushed the region into record low temperatures that plunged to the double-digits below zero. The second high-impact day was May 18, when a late spring cold snap put much of the region into a deep freeze, damaging many trees’ new growth. The final high-impact day was July 10, when heavy rains brought historic flooding to Vermont and other parts of New England.

Taken together, those weather events have made for a lot of stressed out trees. “This year, the roots are waterlogged and not allowing for efficient tree processes,” says Salge. “Last year, it was so dry with high levels of photosynthesis that the trees didn’t open up their leaves.” Stress stunts growth, impacts the amount of nutrients a tree can store over the winter and affects how strongly they can put out leaves in the spring. “So the problem just continues to compound,” he says.

In the grand scale, climate change will eventually impact the vibrancy of fall foliage in the future. “Globally, July was the warmest year on record and it wasn’t even close,” Salge says. “And I just think that the data we’re seeing and the warnings that the scientists are telling us are starting to be observed in more and more extreme events, and it is concerning.”

Salge’s job requires taking a holistic look to predict not only where to find the best fall foliage but, just as importantly, when the color will peak. The latter is the tricky part, since peak color is a moving target dependent upon so many changeable factors. He stresses that microclimate is a really big factor. Trees at high elevations will turn early due to cooler nights, while large lakes can hold so much heat at night that those valleys may turn later than surrounding regions.

Here