This fall, the famous New England foliage show may not last as long as the hope of the leaves. After a summer of drought and erratic precipitation, the experts predict that the colors will arrive early, burn brilliant and then fade faster than usual.
Timing is important beyond the capture of photos worthy of Instagram. Each year, millions of visitors flock to New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine to hike, drive and wander under the changing canopy, bringing $ 8 billion to local savings, according to US Forest Service.
But this year, scientists say that the emblematic display will be less predictable, with unequal color gusts replacing the waves of sweeping and a week of red, orange and gold.
A season “brilliant, brief and early”
Jim Salge, the forecuing of the fall foliage of Yankee magazine, predicts that the transition will be “brilliant, brief and early”. Some leaves are already brown and fall before showing their bright color.
“While we usually see a wave of leaves turning, moving from north and interior to land and climbing to the southern and coastal areas, we are expecting more than one patchwork this year while stressed trees are running early,” said Salge.
The trees become “stressed” when they do not get enough water, which alters photosynthesis – the process of transformation of the sun into energy. Too much water can stifle their roots.
Salge recommends traveling in the white mountains of Vermont, the western chains of Maine, the south of New Hampshire and the north of Massachusetts, where stressed trees can hold better than more forests struck with drought further north.
The peak color is expected at the end of September at higher altitudes, moving to Vermont, New Hampshire and western Maine in early October, about a week earlier than usual.
“The right thing about New England is that if you miss it, you can still move further south,” he said. “If you are too early, you just go north or go up the hills in the mountains.”
Travelers can follow the foliage with tools such as the peak foliage card of Yankee magazine and weekly NY reports.
Why the foliage moves
Although climate change has generally delayed fall in recent decades, this year’s dry summer increases the chronology.
“Ideally, what is good for a forest is to have light rain events that are widely distributed during the year,” said Mukund Rao, assistant research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “But if you have an extreme storm, a month without rain, then another extreme storm, it is too fast for the water to permeate.”
Vibrant foliage colors thrive on hot days and cool nights, but warmer evenings and stressed trees accelerate the fall of leaves. Unhealthy or stressed trees also tend to have shorter transitions and dull leaves, said Rao. On the other hand, trees in urban areas are often longer in color because the buildings and the roadway keep heat, while the reverbs offer an additional slight.
The other threats include trees of trees with heavy spring rains and the disease of beech leaves, which killed brilliant beech trees at the end of the season.
“We see many invasive insects that change our forests, again killing whole trees, as well as invasive plants that disrupt the reforestation and succession model,” said Salge.
Change of follow -up
To make predictions, Salge is based on weather forecasts and phenological data, or monitoring seasonal life cycles.
An unusual source: the Polly pancake fair in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, which has followed local foliage since 1975. Its files show that the peak color arrived for two weeks at the end of September of the same year, but in 2024, went to only two days in early October.
The National Network of Phenology of the United States also collects and shares observations and data on a national scale. The notebook application of its nature puts volunteers to record seasonal changes, data that has fueled more than 200 scientific studies according to Theresa Crimmins, director of the organization.
“We have a kind of general understanding of nature,” said Crimmins. “Regarding individual species in specific places, there are many things we don’t know.”
A reworked version of the launch of the this spring application will allow users to download photos, even for occasional observations.
“The world needs more people to observe and become citizen scientists,” said Salge. “Their vision of the world is the data.”
