If you’re expecting a colorful leaf-peeping experience this fall in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, you may need to lower your expectations.
The high temperatures the D.C. area saw this summer could lead to an earlier and less colorful fall foliage season in Virginia, with some trees quickly turning brown instead of bright reds and oranges.
“The combination of the drought plus extreme heat, those two things are major stresses on trees. So we are going to see effects from that,” said Ellen Powell, conservation education coordinator at the Virginia Department of Forestry.
In an Aug. 16 news release, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said “storage at major water supply reservoirs have recovered and are all within normal ranges” but “groundwater levels … remain below normal and require additional rain to recover” in Shenandoah following Tropical Storm Debby last month.
Fall colors tend to peak in Virginia between Oct. 10 and Nov 1.
“We’re already beginning to see a few changes very early. For instance, in central Virginia, there are already some trees that we think of as the early harbingers of fall that start to show a few red leaves here and there. And that doesn’t usually happen in central Virginia until sometime (later) in September, and it’s already started,” Powell said.
Trees that experience the most stress from drought and extreme heat are particularly those in cities and along dry high mountain ridges.
“We’re still going to see pretty good color in wetland areas … around swamps in eastern Virginia, around the edges of ponds. … We’ll still have decent color in Virginia. I always make that point because we have a wide variety of species in Virginia, and because of that, we tend to have a long fall color season … even into very late October, early November, sometimes,” she said.
Besides peak colors coming a bit earlier, leaf peepers may have to search a bit more this season for the best colors.
“They just might have to drive around a little bit to see the really fabulous views that they might be used to. And there might be a little bit more yellow and yellow-brown this year than normal,” Powell said.
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