The Fall Foliage Season Will Be Delayed, According to Experts

Labor Day has come and gone, Pumpkin Spice Lattes are readily available in Starbucks nationwide, and all the kids are back in school. There’s just one more thing we need to make it feel like fall: Fall foliage. But hold your horses leaf peepers, because it looks like the changing fall colors are going to be a bit delayed this year.

According to The Weather Channel, this year’s fall foliage schedule will likely be delayed by several weeks across the nation. That’s because temperatures across the nation will likely remain above average for several weeks to come.

The weather service noted, parts of the Northeast, Southeast, Rockies, and West have at least a 50 percent chance of warmer-than-average temperatures through the middle and end of September. Though warm days are a good thing for foliage they must also be paired with cool nights. However, the temperatures will remain too high then too.

So, just how late are we talking? According to The Weather Channel, the foliage will be pushed back by about a week. And when they do actually change it will be quite a show thanks to the warm, wet summer that helped fill all the trees with leaves.

Here’s the good news: Even with this year’s late start, it’s still going to turn a little earlier than last year.

“If everything were to continue more typical, we’d see a longer season than last year, we’d see a more vibrant season than last year, and it would come on a little earlier than last year, which was so late,” meteorologist David Epstein told Boston.com. He noted, he expects the colors to appear in New England by the last week of September before migrating south.

The only part of the nation that may not get to see the bright fall colors this year is the Mountain West, which includes the peaks of Utah and Wyoming, The Weather Channel reported. That’s because those areas are already seeing their first snowfalls of the season. But, as a silver lining, that could be a great predictor of a spectacular ski season to come.

“While in some parts of Maine people may notice color change developing a bit earlier than usual due to droughty summer conditions, peak color should develop normally from north to south with a full palette of vibrant colors reflecting our diverse and overall healthy forests,” Aaron Bergdahl, a forest pathologist at Maine’s Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry, also shared with Boston.com.

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Now that you know when it’s happening you can start planning your fall foliage vacation, or, go all in and follow the change throughout the nation for the next few months to come.