Scientists Predict Leaves Will Change Color This Fall

Every year in early October, we here at The Mountain Times field about a dozen calls from folks wanting to know when the peak of the leaf season is. If I’m in reasonably generous mood, I’ll tell them that there’s no foolproof way of knowing but that experience leads us to believe that it will occur sometime around the second week in October. If I’m feeling a little more mischievous, I’ll tell them that it is scheduled for October 10th at 10:10 a.m., and that any leaf viewing before or after that moment will be sorely disappointing.

Sugar maples are getting their annual jumpstart on the leaf season as many of them have already turned bright orange. Photo by Jeff Eason

This is also the season that every publication in the Blue Ridge Mountains sends a reporter out to interview a local leaf expert. I know this because I’ve had the assignment on more than one occasion. Usually the assignment involves contacting Appalachian State University’s Biology Department and talking to its resident professor specializing in the “chromatic variation of dying leaves in the Southern Appalachians.”

The first thing I always ask the professor is, “What in the heck do you do the rest of the year?”

With the help of pie charts, graphs and computer simulations, the professor in question proceeds to show me why we will or won’t have a spectacular fall here in the High Country. Most of it involves the amount of rainfall we received during the spring and summer, the date of the last spring frost, and the number of leaf-eating caterpillars, grasshoppers and koala bears that relocated to our area during the past year.

“It’s all very scientific, you see,” says the professor with just a hint of an English accent to verify his findings.

Just once I’d like to hear one of these leaf experts say something like, “Well, you know Jeff, this year is going to be just about exactly like last year and the year before that. If it rains, the leaves will be wet. If we have a lot of wind, the leaves will blow off the branches…and they won’t be replaced until next fall! But rest assured, the leaves will turn colors and those colors will be attractive to the human eye…what laymen call ‘pretty.’ That is until they fade and turn brown. Then we predict they will be raked into piles or blown about by the four winds.”

Now, that’s a prediction I could take to the bank.

For anyone unfamiliar with leaf season in the High Country, here are a few pieces of information you can actually use. If you come to the mountains and the leaves don’t seem to be at their peak where you are, try driving to a higher altitude. Generally speaking, the leaves peak on Grandfather and Beech mountains prior to peaking in Boone. Conversely, if you’re in Boone and the leaves look a little bit past their prime, try going down to the High Country’s lower elevations such as Valle Crucis or Triplett.

If you are hoping to take photos of our mountains during peak leaf season, it helps to remember that photos taken of a few select trees will usually come out more dramatic than pictures of an entire mountainside. If it is an overcast or cloudy day, the colors of your photographs will turn out “truer” because the daylight is more of a diffuse “white light.” On clear days, you will have the advantage of the reds, oranges and yellows of the leaves being in contrast with the blue of the sky. But you will also have to deal with darker and more direct shadows (black areas on photos) plus an overall light that is saturated with “blue light.” This blue light can sometimes mute the actual colors of the leaves on photos.

And don’t forget the bushes, vines, weeds and flowers! Sometimes you leaf lookers (lecherously called “leaf peepers” in New England) literally can’t see the forest for the trees. Some of the most beautiful flowers of the Southern Appalachians bloom quite late in the year and now is the perfect time for catching ones such as jewelweed with your camera. It’s the little orange and yellow flowers growing out of moist areas along the side of many mountain roads. The dying vines and weeds also provide some incredible color when you dare to venture out of your vehicle and step onto the trail. As a warning though, poison ivy and poison oak are two of the first undergrowth plants to change color each fall and as beautiful as they are, they both have the ability to secrete poison even after they have stopped being green. It helps to have a leaf guide with you if you are planning to collect fall foliage. The Mast General Store’s website has a downloadable one that is especially for the trees in our area. You can find it at http://www.mastgeneralstore.com/fallcolor/fallleafguide.php3.

If you are like me, you’ll enjoy this autumn with a mixture of wonder and sadness. Wonder in the fact that the death and hibernation of so much of our native flora occurs in such a spectacular manner. Sadness in the fact that we have to face four or five months of bare trees before the cycle starts all over again.