A dry, hot summer could mean a loss of fall’s beauty, as the state’s colorful landscape is blossoming earlier and with less vibrancy.
Autumn officially started on Saturday, Sept. 22, and cooler days and nights are already marking the change. Fall in the northeast is synonymous with vibrant foliage because of its variety of broad-leafed tress provide a vast color range. Due to its size, New York State’s tree cover is nearly equally to that of other northeastern states combined.
Many areas already have leaves turning from green to hues ranging from a dull brown to rosy reds. Those hues, according to one expert, just might not be as profound as what leaf peepers are used to.
“We are going to see a lot more browns and pale yellows than the other oranges and reds I think said Karl Niklas, professor of plant biology at Cornell University. “There aren’t going to be the normal number of leaves on the tree, because trees are dropping their leaves now. … Some trees are going to color up more quickly than they normally would. You will not have as coordinated a display of color.”
Niklas, who researches the relationship between plants and the physical environment, said the summer’s high temperatures are only partly to blame. Droughts further hamper coloration.
“It is just not the high temperatures — is there groundwater to keep the leaves hydrated?” he said. “It is this double-edged sword that has created a lot problems for our local forests.”
But Jerry Carlson, a research scientist for the DEC’s Division of Land and Forest, doesn’t see things the same way.
“There should be a fairly high concentration of the reds and purples in there. Now, if we keep the rain away and slowly drop the temperature … there will be a lot of reds, purples and peach colors,” Carlson said. “It could be better than average and maybe even exceptional if we don’t end up with the winter getting too cold too fast and we don’t end up with too much rain.”
Lack of rain has ripple effect
In the Capital District, summer rainfall was below normal levels, but it picked up near the end of the summer and even exceeded the norm in some cases. In August, Albany had 2.6 inches of rain, below the normal 3.46 inches, according to the National Weather Service. A 24-hour period starting Aug. 28 accounted for the majority of precipitation, with around 1.3 inches. The average maximum temperature for last month was 2.6 degrees higher than the normal, with the average low being 1.6 degrees above normal.
Leaves use groundwater to keep cool by evaporating water inside the leaf, so if the roots can’t provide any water the temperature of the leaf rises, Niklas said. Once the leaf temperatures are more than ideal, proteins and enzymes can be damaged, which will kill the leaf or cause browning along its edges.
Carlson said the color a leaf takes on “amounts to how much food the leaf makes for the plant at the end of the growing season” — essentially, the leaf’s leftovers.
“It is all chemistry and there are a lot of things that can affect the chemistry,” such as heavy rain and frost, Carlson said.
Leaf peeping is big business
Fall is not just a boon to locals, however, it accounts for a significant portion of the state’s yearly tourism revenues. Bad leaves could lead to more than a visual disappointment.
Tourism was a $53 billion industry last year, according to Empire State Development Spokesman Eric Scheffel, with the two-month period from Labor Day to the beginning of November accounting for about 25 percent of the year’s total. It was a record year for the state, Scheffel said.
“People want to get out and they want to see out the most beautiful color,” he said. “We are so big in size that we have peaks from late September all the way through November.”
This fall, leaf peepers might need to plan their trips more selectively.
“Tourists are going to have be traveling and selecting more carefully where they are going to be,” Niklas said.
Where to see the colors
The Empire State Development’s I love New York program’s weekly Fall Foliage Report could prove to be a valuable resource for such excursions. The report details what areas are best for viewing colorful leaves during that week and gives an overview of foliage change across the state.
“Our job with the reports is to point people in the direction of where the color is best for whatever particular week the report is for and to let them know what colors are out there,” Scheffel said. “It’s pretty much just a way of being able to look and point where the action is as far as color change goes.
There are around 65 foliage spotters sending in reports Monday and Tuesday, which are then compiled for a report on Wednesday, Scheffel said. The reports have been around for several years but were mainly shared through media outlets or over the phone. Now, people can view each week’s report online at iloveny.com/fall, where the current report is posted.
“There are a lot of people who are very intent on following the leaves each year,” Scheffel said. “We have a fairly large audience of foliage fans.”
The dry and hot summer lead some people to wonder if the “leaves would burn off” or turn early, but Scheffel said the majority of foliage is on or slightly ahead of schedule. He said there were pockets turning early in late August and early September, but those appeared to be “stressed” trees or leaves succumbing to the weather.
“Now we are getting a more normal progression of leaf change,” he said. “Some areas are in fact a little bit slow to turn, such as Old Forge.”
Niklas agreed and said the best time to view foliage is “very regional,” but did believe it would be generally occurring sooner.
“It looks like the plants are doing things two weeks earlier than usual and that is because we had such a mild winter and spring that the flowering season was two weeks earlier,” Niklas said, “so that might accelerate the appearance of the autumn coloration.”
As far as the tourism industry is concerned, Niklas does not think it will be washout.
I don’t think this is going to be disaster for the tourism trade, but it is certainly going to economically spotty,” he said. “Some hotels may have more tourists than they used to and other hotels and restaurants much less.”
The Catskills and Adirondacks are typically the first areas to have their leaves change, Scheffel said. He predicted the week of Sept. 26 to Oct. 2 would provide “some really good color breaking out” in the Adirondacks.