Pops of yellow, red and orange are showing up on trees around New Hampshire.
Foliage experts say the signs have pointed toward a long and vibrant foliage season this autumn. Drought conditions last year caused a notably drab and short display of fall colors.
State officials are hoping that’ll translate to a strong fall tourism season, with an anticipated 3.9 million visitors over the next few months. According to the New Hampshire Department of Business and Economic Affairs, tourists are expected to spend $2 billion dollars this fall, a 5% increase from last year.
Yankee Magazine’s foliage reporter Jim Salge has been driving around the state to see how the fall colors are progressing. He joined NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Barnett for a foliage update.
Transcript
We're starting to see a lot more color on the trees. What are these early colors telling us about the foliage season so far?
Well, there's two different things. We're seeing a little bit of stress color in the maple wetlands, and those happen every year. So those are the earliest turners. But we're starting to see the real foliage season come through in the north and in the mountains. Those early colors are looking really bright right now.
Stress colors: What do you mean by that?
There's a number of reasons why trees would turn early and produce red pigments. The red pigments aren't there all year like the other colors, and they kind of act like a sunscreen. So if the trees are exhibiting some sort of imbalance in their natural state, they'll put these red colors out and turn early. And we're seeing that in the wetlands this year.
What might the overall color palette look like in our forests this year?
So we'll have a more “red year” if there's a lot of sunshine leading up to the turning of peak. But we'll also have a more yellow and orange pattern if it's a little bit more cloudy. The key is we're not going to see a lot of browns this year because — except for along the immediate coast — we don't have a lot of drought and we expect a really vibrant year overall.
Well, let's touch on that a little bit. You've been keeping your eye on the drought near the coast and how it might impact foliage there. Do you see the drought becoming a larger concern as fall moves along?
I definitely was, but with the forecast of the nor'easter coming up, I think we're going to be all right there. Drought usually just makes the season a little shorter. We've been predicting a long year with a really healthy forest, and it'll be a little more compressed along the coast.
So as a foliage reporter, what are the most important factors that you look at when you're making your foliage forecasts?
I think about this all year. I’m thinking about how the trees went to bed in the fall. I'm looking at the winter snowpack. I'm looking at bugs and fungus in the spring, and I'm really looking at just the overall health [of the forest] as we head into the season.
Any specific factors this year you're keeping an eye on?
So if you remember last year we had a really, really dry fall and the trees went to bed extremely stressed. But then we had a classic New England winter and the snowpack lasted forever and it melted slowly. And the soils were great for the growing season this year. We've had very little fungus, we've had very few bugs, and the trees are looking really healthy right now.
Can we touch a bit more on bugs and fungus?
There's a lot of insects that can really put a real chomp on our leaves. We're getting some invasive bugs and pathogens as well. One of the big ones right now is beech leaf disease.
We're hearing a lot of people talking about their beech trees showing really, really shriveled leaves and veined leaves. It's really bad news for the beeches right now. They're not going to be a dominant part of our understory moving forward. We're going to have a lot of tree mortality and it's really going to have wide-ranging effects on not just our foliage season, but the whole ecology of the forests in New Hampshire.
And what else will you keep an eye on as the foliage season continues?
At this point, things are pretty much on autopilot. We really are going to see a nice slow progression down the mountains, north to south, over the next four to six weeks. We want to make sure we don't have a huge early frost. We don't want to have any wind. We've had foliage seasons end in snowfall as well, so we really have to watch for just the immediate weather and how it will impact our leaves.
For those of us here in New Hampshire, or folks who might be coming over to visit, where should people in search of some fall color go this weekend?
So this weekend we're going to be seeing colors racing towards peak in the far north and in the highest elevations. The top of the Kancamagus highway last weekend was racing towards peak, so a lot of that highway will be turning already. But we also don't want to rush people. It's a long season. It takes four to six weeks for the wave of peak to reach all the way to our coast so we have a lot of time to go see it as well.
Do you have a favorite spot for early season leaf peeping?
I always love a hike this time of year. Getting up into elevation is just really, really nice before the wider forests begin to turn. But we mentioned those swamp maples earlier. Going for a paddle this time of year is great too.
