Dry Weather Making Autumn Color Forecasting Difficult

By Mac McLean
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: October 5, 2008

Because its quality is determined by the weather, area foresters are having a hard time predicting what the Mountain Empire’s fall foliage will be like this year.

“It’s like playing poker,” said Ed Shoots, a regional forester with the Virginia Department of Forestry’s Western Region. “It depends on a lot of factors.”

Stoots said the color-changing process typically peaks between Oct. 15 and 25, when the region’s days start to get shorter and the chlorophyll starts breaking down inside the leaves.

The quality of this trans-formation, he said, depends on the amount of moisture trees get before the switch and how cold it gets as the reaction takes place.

Stoots said dry weather, such as the drought that’s hit the Mountain Empire in the last few years, often results in dull colors and makes leaves fall early.

An early frost will also make the leaves drop before they are due, he said, while the best reactions take place when overnight temperatures hover around the 40s.

That’s pretty much where they’re going to stay this week, said Derek Eisentrout, who works with the National Weather Service’s office in Morristown, Tenn.

He said temperatures should warm up slightly over the next few days then the lows will be back in the 40s and 50s as a front moves through the region in the middle of the week. This front, Eisentrout said, might bring some rain.

“We’ve got a [storm] system coming in,” he said. “It looks like a Wednesday night or Thursday night type of event.”

Eisentrout said the weather service is predicting a 30 percent chance of rain for the region Wednesday night. He didn’t know how much rain to expect but said the region is still about 5 inches short of its normal rainfall levels.

Nathan Waters, a spokesman for the Tennessee Division of Forestry’s East Tennessee District, said he didn’t think the coming storm, or the rainfall the region saw last weekend, would make much of a difference because the drought has been so severe.

“I don’t think anything’s going to help [the leaves] stay on much longer,” Waters said, adding that he’s already seen them fall outside his office in Knoxville, Tenn. “We’re already starting to have fires this year.”

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