WCU Researcher: Fall Leaf Color Will Not Be As Brilliant This Year

Press Release from Western Carolina University:

CULLOWHEE – The good news is that ample rainfall across the Western North Carolina mountains put an end to a lengthy drought that threatened local water supplies and reduced crop yields. The bad news is all that moisture will put somewhat of a damper on fall color this year.

That’s the official prediction from Katherine Mathews, Western Carolina University’s fearless fall foliage forecaster and an associate professor of biology specializing in plant systematics.

Mathews bases her annual forecast in part on the amount of rainfall received during vegetation’s prime growing season of the warm-weather months. She subscribes to the theory that the best fall color is seen after springs with below-average rainfall, when plant growth is stunted by a lack of sufficient water.

“The heavy rains don’t bode well for brilliant fall leaf color,” she said. “This year, I predict we’ll see more muted colors than in the past two years. With trees taking advantage of the abundant rainfall during the growing season to pile on the woody growth, they won’t be spending that much energy on pigment production in the yellow, orange and red color spectrums.”

Another factor in the equation is climate during the first weeks of autumn, she said. “If the cool and cloudy days we’ve been experiencing for much of the summer persist through September and October, then there just won’t be a great burst of coloration come fall. I expect we’ll see a gradual color change from September through October and lingering well into November,” Mathews said.

Although the peak of the fall color show is still a couple months away, some areas of WNC already are experiencing color change in a few trees here and there. “Some individual trees and certain species seem out-of-beat with most of their neighbors in putting on a very early color show,” Mathews said. “For instance, at the entrance to the Western Carolina University campus, the leaves of the katsura trees are already turning a pretty pinkish-orange in August.”

Motorists also may notice the leaves of the black locust trees along the roadsides turning brown at the end of the summer. “This is a normal occurrence caused by a leaf miner insect,” she said. “The trees will recover from this late-season damage.”

In spite of the fact that signs point to less-brilliant fall foliage, visitors to the mountains and residents alike should still enjoy a lovely and scenic season this autumn, if not the eye-popping colors of years past, Mathews said. “There is always good color to be found somewhere in the mountains in the fall,” she said.

The peak color change time in WNC traditionally is in the middle of October, although the sourwood and tulip poplar trees change earlier, in late September to early October, with deep red and yellow leaves, respectively. Next come the deep purple color of Bradford pears and red of dogwoods.

Mid-October brings the red, yellow and orange of maples, and the yellow of birches and cherries, followed in late-October by the yellow and red of oaks and sweetgums, yellow of hickories and bronze of beeches, and a variety of other color shades in the vines, shrubs and smaller trees beneath the forest canopy, she said.