2017 New England Fall Foliage Forecast | Update
Learn more about what to expect for this year’s autumn color in our 2017 New England fall foliage forecast update.
By Jim Salge|Sep 19 2017|
Trees around Coffin Pond In Franconia, New Hampshire are speckled red already, a bit ahead of normal.
Credit: John Compton
A very colorful New England fall foliage season could be in the cards this year!
Credit: Jim SalgeCredit: Jim Salge Our outlook was shared hundreds of times, and then hundreds of newspapers and dozens of magazines quoted our piece, all foretelling an awesome season in our beautiful region. This certainly puts the pressure on Mother Nature (who has proven a bit less than kind recently) to come through in the fall foliage forecast department down the final stretch. While the setup this year is great, we still need classic New England weather leading up to the onset of the fall colors to ensure that they really pop. This means we need a September and early October with warm, sunny days; cool nights; limited hard frosts; and limited yet adequate rainfall. It’s our typical weather, and the reason why our typical foliage is spectacular. [text_ad] Here’s how it works:. While the orange and yellow pigments are in the leaves all year, masked by the dominant green chlorophyll, red colors are produced in fall in response to warm, sunny weather. And the cool nights help kill off the chlorophyll quickly while the other pigments remain. And the good news? The weather here continues to be favorable for a great season throughout most of the region. New Englanders have awoken to cool, crisp mornings, with temperatures as low as the mid-thirties in each of the past few weeks, with some intermittent rainfall between otherwise brilliant blue skies.
Temperatures have been very cool at night recently, kickstarting the colors a bit early in far northern New England.
Credit: NOAA/NWSCredit: NOAA/NWS The trees have responded to this early ideal weather by showing some great color in the locations that typically turn earliest. The Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, the northern White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the mountains of western Maine are showing speckles of red in a sea of trees on the verge of turning.
Trees around Coffin Pond In Franconia, New Hampshire are speckled red already, a bit ahead of normal.
Credit: John ComptonCredit: John Compton This is definitely a few days to a week early in these spots, and we will have to monitor to see if the fall foliage forecast progression trends early throughout the rest of the region over the next eight weeks. Additionally, throughout New England’s wetlands the red maples (aka swamp maples) are really putting on a show this year. Bright, lasting red foliage in these spots is usually a great sign for the season overall — as well as an opportunity to seek out some terrific early scenes.
Cole Bog in Enfield, NH is one of many red maple wetlands to see vibrant early color this year.
Credit: Phillip Forsyth
Does early color mean that the peak color in each area will also be early?
We will be in bar harbor maine around October 19th,2017 will this be too late for the leaves to be still colorful?
We were in Bar Harbor a week ago and there was very little color. Oct 19th just might be near peak this year because of the warm temps that lasted so late into the year.
Just back from southern Maine. No color. Very blah. Told very warm temps and little rain. Not expecting much this year
Nothing too stellar yet around the Concord, N.H. area. Been too warm. Many leaves are just falling now so I am not too optimistic. We shall see! My favorite are the Oaks, which come later.