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New England Fall Foliage 2011


Baroclinic Zone

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We have a lot more color here too compared to before the weekend. But its all pretty muted. Some more reds, but they are nowhere near as good as years past. The warm and wet fall thus far has been a disaster for good color this year in the region.

Yea I'd give it a couple of more days Will. It honestly seemed like the colors turned like a light switch this past weekend. Hardly any leaves falling here yet either so we still have some time.

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Huge color change over CT the last 3-4 days..Even the valley today on the way home from work I noticed. Hideous, hideous colors..but the hills are probably 50% changed now with the valley maybe 30% in some areas..Att any rate..worst fall ever for both weather and foliage rolls on

I think '07 might have been worse for foliage. I think it was green until Halloween that year. lol

This year is pretty darn bad though.

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I think '07 might have been worse for foliage. I think it was green until Halloween that year. lol

This year is pretty darn bad though.

LOL..yeah that probably holds the record for longest green on trees and leaves hanging on well past that early Dec snowstorm...but I think the colors this year`are the worst we've had in maybe 20 years or more..and at least now about 10 days behind schedule.

I know autumn 2007 was warm,, but I don't know if it was as warm as this Sept/Oct period will end up being

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Yea I'd give it a couple of more days Will. It honestly seemed like the colors turned like a light switch this past weekend. Hardly any leaves falling here yet either so we still have some time.

The frosty nights last week definitely may have helped a bit, at least enough so its not like '07, but its not going to be nearly enough to overcome the terrible weather other than those few days. Warm and wet is bad for good color. Total opposite of what you want in September and early October.

The colors are mostly muted. I've seen a few more bright reds after that cold shot last week, but its only a very small percentage. The higher hills here are about out of time. This season was a dud.

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The frosty nights last week definitely may have helped a bit, at least enough so its not like '07, but its not going to be nearly enough to overcome the terrible weather other than those few days. Warm and wet is bad for good color. Total opposite of what you want in September and early October.

The colors are mostly muted. I've seen a few more bright reds after that cold shot last week, but its only a very small percentage. The higher hills here are about out of time. This season was a dud.

Yea.. The colors were awesome in Whitefield, NH this weekend.

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The frosty nights last week definitely may have helped a bit, at least enough so its not like '07, but its not going to be nearly enough to overcome the terrible weather other than those few days. Warm and wet is bad for good color. Total opposite of what you want in September and early October.

The colors are mostly muted. I've seen a few more bright reds after that cold shot last week, but its only a very small percentage. The higher hills here are about out of time. This season was a dud.

2007 wasn't actually a bad season for foliage down in Poughkeepsie; we had some very colorful trees on the Vassar campus. I think that fall was dry enough that some colors were able to develop despite the record warmth in October.

2006 was a total dud with almost no foliage in the entire state of VT.

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Color continues to come on rapidly and we are at about 60% color. It has become much more vivid the past 48 hours. Should be a really nice peak in the Southern White Mountains and Northern lakes region around Wednesday before the rain sets in. Seems the frosty nights last week really did it!

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Colors have really begun to come out in a big way here in the past 4 days or so. Maybe this year's foliage will actually be a bit of a late inning surprise here. The swamp (aka red maple) and sugar maples should be peaking within the next few days. The sugar maples that didn't defoliate prematurely are a somewhat dull, muted orange, but the swamp maples are producing the most red and orange as they don't seem to have been as afflicted by the anthracnose fungus as much. Oaks are still green, ashes are past peak, but they were dull this year due to the fungus.

The Springfield area is still pretty much all green, likely due to that fact that the CT River Valley is more of an oak-hickory forest as opposed to the maple-ash-birch forest that predominantly exists here in the Berkshires. The progressive change in tree species with respect to elevation and latitude is a subject that has always caught my attention for whatever reason. Global climate change will definitely cause the northern hardwoods (maple-birch-ash) to be forced north into Canada's taiga region, while the southern hardwoods (oak, hickory, yellow poplar, gum, etc.) will become more dominant here in New England over the coming decades.

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Take a ride up rte 68 into Rutland

Some decent color there

I was up in Princeton yesterday, def better than it has been. But still crappy in comparison to other years.

Its like winter...even in our bad years, we'll get a solid snowstorm or two. Bad foliage years still have some color, but compared to usual, it seems a lot harder to find.

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I was up in Princeton yesterday, def better than it has been. But still crappy in comparison to other years.

Its like winter...even in our bad years, we'll get a solid snowstorm or two. Bad foliage years still have some color, but compared to usual, it seems a lot harder to find.

When I was in SNE last week I noticed just how dull the color seemed even in places like Union, CT (still almost mostly dull green/brown as of Thursday) up at over 1,000ft. I drove I-84 across CT and by far the best color was west of Waterbury... between Waterbury and Danbury there seemed to be ok color, and then it got even better just over the border into NY on I-84. Still nothing spectacular by any means, but definitely closer to what fall should look like as opposed to the dull green/brown mirage of NE CT.

From a distance the Catskills in NY looked quite red/orange as a whole as they are probably at peak right now. I just wonder if there will be a delayed resurgence in vibrancy across SNE like we've been seeing in the mountainous areas. Two weeks ago it wasn't looking promising here but I'll say I've been impressed based on how meager it looked a little while ago... you lower your expectations so much that when you finally do get the reds to burst, it looks awesome even if less than some other years.

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When I was in SNE last week I noticed just how dull the color seemed even in places like Union, CT (still almost mostly dull green/brown as of Thursday) up at over 1,000ft. I drove I-84 across CT and by far the best color was west of Waterbury... between Waterbury and Danbury there seemed to be ok color, and then it got even better just over the border into NY on I-84. Still nothing spectacular by any means, but definitely closer to what fall should look like as opposed to the dull green/brown mirage of NE CT.

From a distance the Catskills in NY looked quite red/orange as a whole as they are probably at peak right now. I just wonder if there will be a delayed resurgence in vibrancy across SNE like we've been seeing in the mountainous areas. Two weeks ago it wasn't looking promising here but I'll say I've been impressed based on how meager it looked a little while ago... you lower your expectations so much that when you finally do get the reds to burst, it looks awesome even if less than some other years.

Yeah that is what I was thinking when I saw more reds yesterday in Princeton. It seemed impressive based on the cruddy color so far, but I was able to remember how much better it has looked in other years.

As I said to hubbdave, we have enough high color trees like the sugar maples and such that even in bad years, you'll eventually get some nice colors...but its all about compared to climo when saying "bad" vs "Good". Its like bad winters, you still get some snowstorms, but they are just much less than good winters.

Hopefully we can have a little more resurgence here in the next week or so, but we've already lost enough of the season that to expect anything above normal is probably unrealistic at this point. The chilly weather last week combined with the dry weather the past week or so has certainly helped some.

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The color is absolutely exploding here right now. What a difference a few days makes...every day it's more colorful and vibrant.

The stretch from exit 15-17 on 93N is spectacular right now. It lulls a bit in the stretch where it is predominantly evergreens, but the last mile or so before my exit 19 it picks up strong again. I'd say we're getting near peak now.

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Interesting the color's exploding up there, I noticed the same in the past 24-48 hours here in NJ. We've gone from I'd say about 20-25% to 40-45% change within a day or so. Anyone else think this year actually seems early? Maybe due to the excessive rains. I'm noticing a lot of trees that normally turn color 7-10 days from now are already showing a decent amount of change. At the rate we're going, we may be peaking by October 20th.

2007 and 2005 were both horrid, with peaks in the 2nd week of November. This year looks to be much, much earlier.

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When I was in SNE last week I noticed just how dull the color seemed even in places like Union, CT (still almost mostly dull green/brown as of Thursday) up at over 1,000ft. I drove I-84 across CT and by far the best color was west of Waterbury... between Waterbury and Danbury there seemed to be ok color, and then it got even better just over the border into NY on I-84. Still nothing spectacular by any means, but definitely closer to what fall should look like as opposed to the dull green/brown mirage of NE CT.

It's improving, especially after last weeks cold shot but it's only shadow of what it normally is. The maples and other hard woods are trying but It looks a Van Gogh painting out there. The ones that turned earlier than the ones that are turning now seem to be the most muted...I've seen some trees and stretches of road that fairly decent, but not great. Fall here usually can be as good as just about any where in New England but not this year. :(

You mentioned Union....one of my favorite drives is from here over to Westford and up through the Yale Forest on Kinney Hollow Rd. Myers Pond is always nice this time of year (or any time of year)! I haven't been along there yet this year but it would be interesting to compare.

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As I said in the banter thread--depending on the species & exposure, we're past peak out here above 1000' but the Connecticut River valley is really blazing away right now. Here's a shot from yesterday taken in Orford, NH, looking through an inlet of the river and across the river toward Fairlee, VT. And yeah, that's a Jolly Roger flag on that pontoon boat, ha-ha.

The hills look like Fruity Pebbles:

6237772977_d5e1f24c54_z.jpg

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Another day with brochure/chamber of commerce weather... inversion this morning with 39-40F down in town and 45-50F on the mountain depending on elevation.

As I said in the banter thread--depending on the species & exposure, we're past peak out here above 1000' but the Connecticut River valley is really blazing away right now. Here's a shot from yesterday taken in Orford, NH, looking through an inlet of the river and across the river toward Fairlee, VT. And yeah, that's a Jolly Roger flag on that pontoon boat, ha-ha.

The hills look like Fruity Pebbles:

6237772977_d5e1f24c54_z.jpg

Nice shots. I had posted these over the weekend from Shelburne (MA, not VT) in the banter thread. Actually, the bottom two are looking at Vermont. I'm not sure if that's Mt. Snow on the left. We're less than 30 miles south of it, and that one looks more than 30 miles. Ideas?

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