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Fall Foliage 2017


powderfreak

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After hearing on the local news that this was supposed to be a great foliage year here in SNE/CT due to the moist spring and summer,  I do agree with those who think the dry weather and heat of "late" has damaged our potential great foliage year.  

 

A lot of the trees that would be really lighting up now, are just drying up with more of a brown shriveled look, than a red/orange bright look....a shame really.  Things have gotten a bit better after the rain on Monday, but nothing like what was expected for the area.  Just goes to show, that a few week period of dry and heat this time of the year can put the screws to the foliage look, after a great fall was forecasted just a few weeks to a month ago.

 

Still a ways to go here...so who knows what the next week or two brings with regard to color(maybe it makes a come back???)...but not looking all to spectacular as of today....

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  Took a trip up into VT and NH this last weekend. Thursday through Sunday,5-8 Oct. Started out in Brattleboro on Friday early and drove to Bennington and up Rte 7 to Burlington. Then across VT and NH over to the Notch on friday and through the Kanc over to Jackson NH. Spent the day Sunday Hiking some trails around North Conway. Im from this part of the world and did the trip to see some nice fall color as I dont live up there anymore and miss the season.  Its interesting...for every three trees....seems one is still all green. The other two have busted out in nice color and some low to moderate leaf drop. Saw some areas that were actually rather spectacular, even though it was kind of gray most of the weekend. The Greens (mtns) seemed far less colorful and Burlington seems to have hardly changed at all while we were there on friday afternoon. Some good pockets of color just west of Brattleboro along the Mary Stark Highway.  Stowe was particularly nice along with just about everything east of there and into the Notch and North Conway. The Highway pic is along the Kanc, most of the time even though it was grey it was really enjoyable. Saw some peaks of sun for a few hours every day and the trees really popped then. Id call it a moderate season...not great, but not horrible either. WAY better than the rusty yellows we get down here in Georgia!!!!

fall1.jpg

fall2.jpg

fall3.jpg

fall4.jpg

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36 minutes ago, CTValleySnowMan said:

Color is average at best so far in Enfield.  Was out on 66 east near Marlborough/E. Hampton today and it was even worse.  Rust/Sh*t browns in most spots and diseased trees.  Still time for some improvement but the caterpillar zone is probably cooked.  

 

Definitely not the best year, but its still really early and most of the trees in town are still green. Another week will tell how it is around here.

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18 hours ago, Sugarloaf1989 said:

Pretty awful foliage color in Vermont yesterday, DIT was right, probably the worst in recorded history:

Where were you in 2005?  DIT might be right for some places, but around here the colors are exponentially better than 12 years ago.  So are your great pics.  In 2005 the colors were washed-out blah (the year of no reds), until neatly 6" of wind-driven RA on Columbus Day weekend changed that to washed away.

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3 hours ago, tamarack said:

Where were you in 2005?  DIT might be right for some places, but around here the colors are exponentially better than 12 years ago.  So are your great pics.  In 2005 the colors were washed-out blah (the year of no reds), until neatly 6" of wind-driven RA on Columbus Day weekend changed that to washed away.

This foliage season was the wackiest that I can recall. The foliage was awesome from Killington down to Andover, then bland from there through to the MA boarder. It varied from hillside to hillside, from OMG to ick in a short distance.

The foliage color was even better on October 7th, but the weather was awful.

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1 hour ago, Sugarloaf1989 said:

This foliage season was the wackiest that I can recall. The foliage was awesome from Killington down to Andover, then bland from there through to the MA boarder. It varied from hillside to hillside, from OMG to ick in a short distance.

The foliage color was even better on October 7th, but the weather was awful.

Yep definitely a year for pockets of good color as opposed to widespread vistas

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On 10/11/2017 at 2:19 PM, Sugarloaf1989 said:

Pretty awful foliage color in Vermont yesterday, DIT was right, probably the worst in recorded history:

Killington - Andover - Glebe Mountain:

 

 

 

Killington1 (Medium).JPG

Bear Mtn (Medium).JPG

Skye Peak (Medium).JPG

Andover (Medium).JPG

Glebe Mtn (Medium).JPG

Recognize that hill which is your last pic, here is my shot from last year from the same exact spot when at peak around 10/5/16 I think. Your shot is obviously past peak with bare trees, not sure what it looked like at true peak several days before your pic.  Last year looked really good.

 

rps20161006_113616.jpg.2b8f9a5390412f06bb276bff95ec3c06.jpg

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48 minutes ago, backedgeapproaching said:

Recognize that hill which is your last pic, here is my shot from last year from the same exact spot when at peak around 10/5/16 I think. Your shot is obviously past peak with bare trees, not sure what it looked like at true peak several days before your pic.  Last year looked really good.

 

rps20161006_113616.jpg.2b8f9a5390412f06bb276bff95ec3c06.jpg

My son took that picture as we headed home on VT112, just past Magic Mountain. It was past peak by a bit due to the rain/wind the day before. 

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Foliage Report  10/12/17  White Mountains...Beautiful weather today.   Decided that today was the day that I should take a road trip through the Whites.  Drove about 125 miles.  Left my house just south of Plymouth and drove north through Franconia Notch. Then north around the Whites to the Mt Washington Hotel.  Headed south through Crawford Notch to the Kanc.  Then west over the Kanc to Loon.    Most of the Whites  are peak below about 1750 feet.  Franconia Notch is just past peak.  Areas around Mt Washington hotel/ Bretton Woods past peak.  Crawford Notch at peak.  Lower parts of Kanc at peak, highest elevations past peak. 

I found the foliage to be pretty poor.  Many areas are peak but colors are muted.  I'll let you decide for yourself.  Here are 4 drone flights around different areas of the Whites.  The video is as the drone saw it, no enhancements or post-production.

Last year around my hood the colors were MUCH brighter.  The last video is from my hood from last Oct 18th.  Same drone, same camera settings.  You can see there is absolutely no comparison, last year was fantastic.  Currently it is still mostly green in my area of the NW lakes region

 

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On 10/11/2017 at 4:51 PM, DeltaPilot said:

  Took a trip up into VT and NH this last weekend. Thursday through Sunday,5-8 Oct. Started out in Brattleboro on Friday early and drove to Bennington and up Rte 7 to Burlington. Then across VT and NH over to the Notch on friday and through the Kanc over to Jackson NH. Spent the day Sunday Hiking some trails around North Conway. Im from this part of the world and did the trip to see some nice fall color as I dont live up there anymore and miss the season.  Its interesting...for every three trees....seems one is still all green. The other two have busted out in nice color and some low to moderate leaf drop. Saw some areas that were actually rather spectacular, even though it was kind of gray most of the weekend. The Greens (mtns) seemed far less colorful and Burlington seems to have hardly changed at all while we were there on friday afternoon. Some good pockets of color just west of Brattleboro along the Mary Stark Highway.  Stowe was particularly nice along with just about everything east of there and into the Notch and North Conway. The Highway pic is along the Kanc, most of the time even though it was grey it was really enjoyable. Saw some peaks of sun for a few hours every day and the trees really popped then. Id call it a moderate season...not great, but not horrible either. WAY better than the rusty yellows we get down here in Georgia!!!!

 

You definitely got to see the difference between the BTV area and those east of the Spine of the Green Mountains.  There's usually a fairly sizeable difference in both weather and foliage between the Champlain Valley and "interior Vermont" east of what we call the Spine.  Despite not a whole lot of change between Burlington and the RT 100 corridor (which goes through all the ski towns in this area and up/down the state) of like 300ft vs. 700-1,000ft, there's about a 3-5 degree difference on average it seems.  That seems to have BTV 1-2 weeks behind the mountain valleys in terms of foliage.

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Cloudy skies yesterday afternoon really seemed to bring out the colors. 

Without a doubt, I feel the colors are more vibrant and colorful with cloudy autumn skies.  With full sunlight it can be a little "harsh" on the colors, especially when taking photos.

Here's one I liked from yesterday afternoon of the lower elevations on Mansfield.  In this photo is roughly 1,600ft up to 2,400ft in elevation.  Even in this small elevation change, you can tell the top half has more leaf drop than the bottom zone of the photo.  Above 2,400ft up to the treeline is quickly turning into stick season.

miYmW4m.jpg

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4 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

You definitely got to see the difference between the BTV area and those east of the Spine of the Green Mountains.  There's usually a fairly sizeable difference in both weather and foliage between the Champlain Valley and "interior Vermont" east of what we call the Spine.  Despite not a whole lot of change between Burlington and the RT 100 corridor (which goes through all the ski towns in this area and up/down the state) of like 300ft vs. 700-1,000ft, there's about a 3-5 degree difference on average it seems.  That seems to have BTV 1-2 weeks behind the mountain valleys in terms of foliage.

 

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

Cloudy skies yesterday afternoon really seemed to bring out the colors. 

Without a doubt, I feel the colors are more vibrant and colorful with cloudy autumn skies.  With full sunlight it can be a little "harsh" on the colors, especially when taking photos.

Here's one I liked from yesterday afternoon of the lower elevations on Mansfield.  In this photo is roughly 1,600ft up to 2,400ft in elevation.

miYmW4m.jpg

PF,  that picture is like another world from what I saw today in the Whites.  It was interesting to see the difference in 40 miles south to north.  My area around Plymouth NH was still mostly green.  Go 40 miles north to the other side of the Whites and its past.  So the strip of peak is really narrow.  My area has not gotten a frost yet while areas north of the Whites did a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe that is why.  I just want to see colors like the picture you posted.  I did last year so maybe it will happen again in my hood but it would be early next week I would guess....

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29 minutes ago, wxeyeNH said:

 

PF,  that picture is like another world from what I saw today in the Whites.  It was interesting to see the difference in 40 miles south to north.  My area around Plymouth NH was still mostly green.  Go 40 miles north to the other side of the Whites and its past.  So the strip of peak is really narrow.  My area has not gotten a frost yet while areas north of the Whites did a couple of weeks ago.  Maybe that is why.  I just want to see colors like the picture you posted.  I did last year so maybe it will happen again in my hood but it would be early next week I would guess....

From what I've seen, it may have more to do with precipitation than temperatures, although its certainly a combination of them both.  But I saw our greatest changes once it started raining more regularly.  We also had a frost a couple weeks ago with a low of 31F out in the field at the ASOS for 3 days straight from Sept 30 to Oct 2... but the real rapid change seemed to come after it rained.

Yesterday's lighting just made the foliage jump out... with a chilly breeze and temps in the upper 40s with slate gray skies, the colors really popped on the lower mountain.  I adjusted my settings to over-expose the image a bit to give it some brighter light but keep the deep color provided by the ambient lighting influenced by the weather.  It was almost like a glow through the mid level clouds.

 

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25 minutes ago, powderfreak said:

From what I've seen, it may have more to do with precipitation than temperatures, although its certainly a combination of them both.  But I saw our greatest changes once it started raining more regularly.  We also had a frost a couple weeks ago with a low of 31F out in the field at the ASOS for 3 days straight from Sept 30 to Oct 2... but the real rapid change seemed to come after it rained.

Yesterday's lighting just made the foliage jump out... with a chilly breeze and temps in the upper 40s with slate gray skies, the colors really popped on the lower mountain.  I adjusted my settings to over-expose the image a bit to give it some brighter light but keep the deep color provided by the ambient lighting influenced by the weather.  It was almost like a glow through the mid level clouds.

 

I wonder if on overcast days it actually makes the color seem more vibrant than on days like today with a darker Blue Sky? On my video from last year it was a gray day also.

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On 10/10/2017 at 3:27 PM, Damage In Tolland said:

Someone that posts here says it’s vibrant and brilliant there while every other town in the state is suffering thru a bad season 

 

On 10/10/2017 at 3:42 PM, tamarack said:

Huh?  It's not worth going back to older pages, but on this one I saw two posts that used the word "vibrant".  On one, it was prefaced by "not as", while the other came from central NH.

Crappy color in my area.  Many trees decimated by caterpillars earlier this year plus just not a great year for good colors.

In my experience, when defoliated trees set a 2nd crop of leaves, the colors are crummy - probably not enough time to produce the chemicals that blaze.

 

On 10/10/2017 at 5:25 PM, Sugarloaf1989 said:

Your an asshat.

 

On 10/10/2017 at 5:44 PM, Damage In Tolland said:

You Dish it out.. gotta learn how to take it too son. Seek counseling if needed 

 

On 10/10/2017 at 6:04 PM, Sugarloaf1989 said:

Your started it I can't help if your too stupid to notice that.

lol. How did I miss this?

All I know is that I drive along route 6 to 384 into Manchester every day (and sometimes to Norwich on rte 2 and back up rte 395, or sometimes out 84 to rte 44), driving through about 20 or more towns and the color in every one of those towns is sh*t.

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12 minutes ago, Cold Miser said:

 

 

 

 

lol. How did I miss this?

All I know is that I drive along route 6 to 384 into Manchester every day (and sometimes to Norwich on rte 2 and back up rte 395, or sometimes out 84 to rte 44), driving through about 20 or more towns and the color in every one of those towns is sh*t.

I posted that the foliage in Enfield was healthy, lush and green on October 1st, which it was. Disaster In Tolland twisted it into me saying the colors are vibrant, which they are not. Here in Enfield about 60% of the foliage is still green with no indication of how it will turn colors. Tonight's frost should help, but then it's near 80F come sunday.

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As I have said it is about the pockets of color you can find this year. Just a few miles from those nice peak areas I took shots of in NY you would hit areas that have hardly changed. In the ADK's of course it was much more about elevation (Past peak and leaf drop above cascade mountain and near peak to peak at those lakes and below to the Northway on 73). You just have to search it out this go around. I realize it isn't the best year but there are some nice scenes to be had. Obviously now it is getting late and it won't be long before stick season arrives. Can't wait to take the Mavic up for winter scenes.

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2 hours ago, IrishRob17 said:

@tamarack A friend of mine who leaves near Brattleboro VT said that he spoke to his county forester who said the dulled and delayed colors in that area is partly due to last years drought.  I've never heard of that before, is it something you or anyone else has heard of before? 

I would like to know this too.  I've never heard anything like that before.

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