Fall Colors May Come Early in Dry Northeast

Drought conditions in northern New England are expected to cause the foliage season to start about a week earlier than usual, but foresters are divided on how the dry roots will affect the colorful blazes that lure millions of visitors from around the country.

“The colors will be there; they will just be a little early,” said Jack Sargent, chief of forest protection in New Hampshire.

“My 20-odd years of work in the field seems to tell me, though, that in a dry year you don’t have the brilliant reds or oranges. But you never know.”

Pockets of land across New England have been hard-hit this year by lack of rain. Officials say some areas are suffering their worst drought since the early part of the century.

Sargent and other foresters said Friday that the drought had placed additional stress on the trees, causing many of the leaves to turn color earlier than usual.

For northern New England, fall foliage season is the busiest tourist time of the year, attracting an estimated 3 million sightseers to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine from mid-September to mid-October.

According to the region’s tourism directors, visitors last year spent between $80 million and $90 million during the four-week period.

“You get people coming to New England from the rest of the country to see foliage. They are coming from Texas, New Mexico, California, even places that have foliage,” said Michael Power, New Hampshire’s director of vacation travel.

“New England has garnered the reputation in the past 10 years to be the place in the country to see fall foliage.”

Foresters say that along ridge tops and in higher elevations some trees are already showing color.

Shorter days and drops in the temperature trigger the chemical process that causes leaves to turn from green to other colors. Chlorophyll, which make the leaves appear green in the summer, loses its dominance and other cells, bringing other colors, emerge.