ASHEVILLE — The burning question of the day is what fall colors to expect in western North Carolina. Is it too early to make predictions? Email Editor-in-Chief Karen Chavez at [email protected] and your question could appear in an upcoming column.
Ask: When does fall foliage start in Asheville? Can we expect beautiful foliage along the Blue Ridge Parkway?
Answer: If it seems too early to ask experts about fall foliage, it is. But even though I started asking questions long before the end of August, I wasn’t even the first person to call.
When I spoke with Howard Neufeld, WNC’s fall foliage expert, on August 20, he said he had already done three interviews about leaf color. Neufeld is a professor of plant ecophysiology at Appalachian State University in Boone and runs the Facebook page “Fall Color Guy.”
Evan Fisher, an atmospheric science graduate from UNC Asheville and owner and founder of ExploreFall.com, is watching page views skyrocket as fall colors begin to appear in the north.
“We’re once again in a new fall foliage season, interest is picking up, and the first color changes are already underway in Alaska. So we’re getting our maps ready and battening down the hatches for a busy but wonderful season in Western North Carolina,” Fisher said.
Living in WNC, it’s probably no surprise that residents and visitors alike have a craving for fall foliage. The fall color season in this area is long, and if leaf-gazers were so inclined, they could follow the wave of color from 6,000-foot elevations to the foothills.
As Neufeld will tell you, we have the greatest diversity of tree species in the country, and each contributes its own shade of orange-yellow-red. In the fall, they transform WNC’s forests into a canvas – each treetop a unique splash of color.
What do we know now?
In late August, Neufeld said there was no reason to believe Asheville would not have a good season. The truly critical moments for the timing and quality of color will come in mid-September. If those weeks coincide with above-average temperatures, color could be delayed and affect quality.
But when the weather cools down as usual in the second week of September and October – with morning lows between 7 and 10 degrees Celsius and moderate daytime temperatures of no more than 22 degrees Celsius, ideally between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius – “that really gets the trees going and they will mature on time,” he says.
“Blue skies, clear nights. That’s generally the perfect combination for brilliant fall colors,” Fisher said.
Color changes are triggered by two main factors: shortening days and falling temperatures. Sunny but not hot days and cool nights are optimal conditions for bright pigments. Higher temperatures through October can delay or dull the colors, and as Neufeld and Fisher warned, hurricanes and tropical storms can pose some danger to fall foliage.
Drought could also be a cause for concern, said Nuefeld. But despite a dry June and a wet July, August was somewhat milder, which he described as a “good sign.”
“The fact that we don’t have a drought means that the trees aren’t shedding their leaves prematurely,” he said.
“September will ultimately be the final decision on how this season goes, but I think we can get some information from how this summer went in general and how the spring went here as well,” Fisher said. An early spring like this year can encourage an early leaf change, he said.
Any warning signs?
In contrast, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting slightly higher temperatures in its current three-month forecast, which could lead to some delay.
But apart from this outlook, which Fisher says is rather speculative, “in my view there is nothing at this point that would give rise to major concern.”
Neufeld also said he sees this as potentially good news, as only a “slightly” above-normal temperature is forecast, rather than a severe heat wave.
In a recent Facebook post, he noted, “Meteorologists can’t accurately predict daily weather more than about 8 to 10 days in advance, so when people ask if it’s going to be a good year for fall color, I can’t tell them anything with scientific certainty more than two to three weeks in advance. Neither can anyone else, no matter what they say.”
What does “on time” mean at WNC?
As climate change makes temperatures slightly warmer than historical averages more the norm, later leaf coloring will also become more normal, experts told the Citizen Times last fall, with fall colors likely to appear a few days to a week later than in a more “traditional” season.
Neufeld said he has noticed greater variability in recent years, making fall colors more difficult to predict.
In years considered “on time,” the sun could change color as early as the first week of October in high-elevation locations like Graveyard Fields and Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which are over 5,000 feet in elevation – compared to Asheville at about 2,200 feet – and in cold weather it could start in late September.
The 3,000- to 4,000-foot elevation portion of the parkway, which stretches 469 miles from Virginia to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Cherokee at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, could begin to change colors between October 10 and 20.
During the third week, October 20 through the end of the month, fall colors may peak in Asheville, around the Biltmore Estate, and in Hendersonville, at about 2,100 feet elevation.
Fisher said his favorite time is the last ten days of October.
“In WNC, it doesn’t matter if the season is early or late, there is always a broad strip of mountains somewhere in this area that shows the colors at their peak,” he said.
Sarah Honosky is a city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News tips? Email [email protected] or message @slhonosky on X, formerly Twitter. Please support local, daily journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.
