2016 Foliage Report | Color Emerging Rapidly Across Northern New England

There’s a certain feel to the air when fall weather moves into New England. The sun is bright, but not quite strong enough now to overcome the cool midday breezes. It’s crisp, but not cold, and invites everyone back outside. It beckons the flannel out of the closets, and calls us to the orchards for apple picking and the cider donuts we’ve waited all year for. Fair season is in full swing, fires are starting in the stoves, and football is filling the weekend. Best of all, the fall colors that we love are definitely making their presence known.

Much of Northern New England received their first frost this weekend, and temperatures have been at or below normal for the better part of a week now. This reverses the recent trend that placed this September in the top ten warmest and stalled the progress of the foliage at the onset. Now that cold temperatures have arrived, conditions are racing towards peak in the areas that typically turn earliest. These areas generally include the northern portions of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, though there are surprising pops of early color throughout northern New England and down into Massachusetts.

This weekend, the brightest, most consistent foliage will still be found only in the earliest-turning, far northern areas. The area from Stowe, Vermont, over to the Northeast Kingdom should be looking good, with greens, reds and oranges mixing in generally pre-peak conditions. In New Hampshire, the western White Mountains—starting in Lincoln and extending north along Rte. 3 all the way to the Canadian border beyond Pittsburg—should offer prime leaf peeping now, and the area of color should continue to expand. The mountains from Rangeley up to the Carrabassett Valley will have the best color in the state of Maine.  In addition to the great emerging color, the other relatively good news is that the weather this weekend looks likely to be driest in these far northern regions, as well. Some rainfall is in the forecast across much of the region, but hopefully won’t interfere with the opportunities to explore these beautiful areas. It’s important to note that some of the best foliage pictures are taken in the even light that cloud cover provides, and the rain can make the colors pop on film, or its digital equivalent.  

Just outside of these earliest-turning areas, the canopy remains largely green, with increasing speckles of reds, yellows and browns. This includes the southern White Mountains, the spine of the Green Mountains, the Berkshires and the areas around Maine’s lakes as far north as to Baxter State Park and the newest National Monument. These areas usually peak around the first week of October, and this year, it looks like intensifying colors this week will lead up to a possiblity of peak foliage for the holiday weekend. Whereas the leaves of far northern New England are turning on a mostly normal timetable now, the effects of the drought are more pronounced in central New England, causing what will likely be a more accelerated timetable. While perhaps not widely photogenic yet, driving around southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts has led us to many surprisingly bright pops of color. This area should really explode into color with the next cold snap.

If you are set to explore central New England, higher elevations, forest edges, and areas with planted trees in parks and town centers remain the best areas to find bright color. Areas with lots of ledges and shallow soil are also turning early, as trees there are most stressed from the persistent dry conditions.  

Wetlands typically turn early in central New England, and this has held true this year, at least in wetlands that have remained wet. In places where they have dried out, so have the trees, and we’ve seen some early browning and dropping of leaves among these un-swamped swamp maples. Droughts provide some challenges for foliage fans, but with cool, sunny weather, sugars can also concentrate in the leaves, resulting in bright colors. We hope for a return to this weather pattern next week.  As the colors continue to get brighter by the day, we at NewEnglandFoliage.com will provide the most up-to-date information on our interactive foliage tracker. On the road, you can also make reports and submit photos through our foliage app, and let others know what you are seeing!  Great color is out there to find this weekend, and we’re only one week away from the big Columbus Day rush! We’ll see you soon!