The first time I wandered into North Carolina in the fall it was a wonder I didn’t swallow every bug in the state…My mouth was hanging so open it almost drug on the ground. My wife and I are from Texas and while we thought we had seen fall many times in our life…We were wrong.
Driving Back From Craggy Gardens Sunrise
Below you will find links to Fall Color Reports from different sources online. I will add new links as I discover them…
Asheville Fall Color Report | Asheville, NC’s Official Tourism Web Site.
Fall is right around the corner. Early signs such as the red Mountain Ashe berries on Grandfather Mountain, at a lofty 5,900+ feet, indicate that leaf season is on its way. We reached out to our cadre of fall foliage experts to gather their predictions for our 2009 fall forecast.
Fall Color Predictions For ‘America’s Best Idea’ | Reuters.
“Every year is a good year for autumn color, depending on where you are in Western North Carolina. We finally had a normal rainfall year. As of September 1, the Asheville airport reports only one inch above ‘normal’ precipitation. With good growth on the trees, we have all the foliage we need for great fall color. As long as autumn develops normally with cool nights and dry days — and October is typically one of our driest months — it should be a colorful season.” — Biltmore Director of Horticulture, Parker Andes
“Drought-stressed trees show more color and turn, more or less, simultaneously. So, our wetter year could make the colors appear more gradually. We don’t know what the weather will bring, but fronts that give us cold nights and bright sunny days will start the process in a couple weeks at high elevations, which will be vibrant very soon, and continue down to the low elevations. The later color from oaks and hickories will be nice at the end of October and early November.” — University of North Carolina Asheville Associate Professor of Biology, David Clarke
“Compared to when I was growing up, I think it tends to stay warmer and we see the color later in the season. This was a more typical summer, like the kind I remember as a kid… cooler and wetter.” –Steve Woody, Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Grandfather Mountain Fall Leaf Report
Grandfather Mountain is considered one of the best fall color destinations in the Southern Appalachians because of Grandfather’s amazing diversity of plant life. As autumn approaches and the chlorophyll begins to fade from the leaves, the yellow and red pigments that lay beneath the green chlorophyll begin to show through. And because each different species of plant revels a little bit different hue and shade, the abundant variety of plant species at Grandfather reveal an abundant variety of autumn colors.
MAST General Store: Fall Foliage Primer.
Fall is a beautiful time of year! The leaves have one last hurrah before tumbling to the ground in October and November. In this section you will find tips on taking better fall photographs, fun puzzles for kids, activities for young and old, a guide to fall colors, and an up-to-date leaf watch with periodic photos from the mountains of Western North Carolina and the Upstate of South Carolina.
Fall Color: Fall Color Update for Week of September 28, 2009.
After a wet week, and a drenching Saturday, a cold front has moved in and the sun is now shining again. Over the next two weeks, we need these sunny, cool days to maximize our chances of a great fall color display. Colors are just beginning to show around Boone. Sugar and red maples (Acer saccharum and A. rubrum) are changing, with the occasional bright red tree standing out in a canopy of green.
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