Planning a pilgrimage to enjoy the brilliant fall leaves will be trickier this year.
Months of record-breaking drought in the Northeast have deprived trees of water, and in the West, nearly 100 large fires have swept a path of destruction across seven states.
From California to Oklahoma to Maine, the symphony of colors that accompanies the arrival of a snap in the air is playing out differently in 2022. But leaf-peepers need not despair. Those looking to feast their eyes on the vibrant foliage of fall will have plenty to savor this year, as long as they plan it right.
The effects of climate change
“It’s no question that climate change is impacting leaf-peeping season,” said Dr. Gordon Ober, a professor of environmental science at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass.
The impact, Dr. Ober said, can be seen in a few ways: The height of leaf-peeping season is arriving later and sticking around for a shorter period of time.
“Due to warmer weather, the growing season of broadleaf trees in the Northeast and out West is being extended,” he said. “Peak leaf-peeping a few decades ago would happen earlier in the fall, and now it typically happens later on.”
According to Dr. Ober, warm temperatures are keeping some trees green later into the season, staving off the glorious crimson and gold colors that leaf-peepers love. In other regions, a lack of rain is turning others prematurely brown.
This year is shaping up to be the fifth-warmest year in recorded history. The summer of 2022 brought record-breaking heat across the globe. As the mercury rose, water levels dipped dangerously — by August, severe to extreme drought affected more than a quarter of the contiguous United States, and as of late September, a quarter of the Northeast continues to experience abnormally low rainfall.
Dr. Nicole Davi, who leads the environmental science department at William Paterson University, studies trees and the effects that events like extreme weather have on them. She is currently conducting field work in New York’s Catskill Mountains, and said that in many places, this year’s viewing season felt over before it even began.
“We’ve had a pretty serious drought this season, and that can mute colors. What I see in the lower Hudson Valley and northern New Jersey is they’ve kind of skipped the foliage altogether,” she said. “You see how stressed trees have become, and when they’re stressed, you’re not going to see the same brilliance in color.”
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