Here's who could see the most vibrant fall foliage this year

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Paul Pastelok was live on the AccuWeather Network on Sept. 4 to discuss AccuWeather's 2024 fall foliage forecast.

Transcript

00:00And hey, if you're looking forward to the temperature dropping, sweater weather,

00:04apple picking, pumpkin spice lattes, football, you name it. Another staple of fall, of course,

00:08the wonderful changing colors of the season. You are in love because lead long-range meteorologist

00:14Paul Pastelok, you've been working hard on AccuWeather's fall foliage forecast,

00:18and he's joining us right now to discuss what we can expect this fall. Good morning, Paul.

00:23Good morning. I don't know if you noticed, you know, with this cool air mass in place,

00:28some of the folks in the northeast may be a little slightly on the lower tint of the green

00:33on the trees. You're starting to see the trees making a difference right now. So it's not

00:38changing to those yellows, reds, and orange just yet, but you can notice out there, if you look

00:42carefully, not as green as they looked about a couple of weeks ago. Oh, Paul, I have noticed.

00:47I don't have the best vision, but I am very attentive to detail, and I was like, are those

00:50trees changing? All right, on that note, what parts of the United States could see some of the

00:54best fall foliage this season? Well, if you're really serious about looking at the fall foliage

00:58across the United States, and you're willing enough to travel, I think you've got to go west

01:02of the Appalachians and stay east of the central plains states, right smack in that middle of that

01:07red area looking really good. And the reason why, this area did receive rain from time to time

01:12during the growing season, and that's good. Kept the trees healthy, and now we're going into the

01:17early part of the fall season, and it's drying out in these areas, and that's a good sign. That's

01:21what you need as we go into the early fall. More sunshine, cool nights. We have the cool

01:27air mass in place, and that is going to bring out the colors around Chicago, Minneapolis,

01:31Green Bay, St. Louis. Going to be beautiful in that area. Well, Paul, someone from the northeast

01:36is sitting and looking at this map and seeing kind of the yellows and the tans color. What does that

01:40mean? You know, the northeast is very well known for its leaf peeping season, and how's the season

01:45looking there? Really hard in the northeast. There's so many things that have gone on this year,

01:50and what's expected going through the month of September, early October. Keep in mind that

01:54yellow area may be typical colors, but you're in between. Some areas may be good. Some areas may

02:00be seeing more yellows and browns. But where there's been less rain, north and west, Pennsylvania,

02:06New York State, I think it's going to be a beautiful fall foliage site. Reds and oranges

02:10really bright as we dry out here in September. Unfortunately, the farther east you go, around

02:14the 95 corridor, we've had a lot of rainfall this summer. We've also going to see even more

02:20rainfall coming in the future days, and that's probably going to dull the colors a little bit.

02:25And also, some of the trees shutting down early may drop the leaves a little bit earlier,

02:29especially in the central and southern Appalachians, where they saw drought conditions

02:34over the summer season. So, looks a little less intense in that part of the country.

02:38All right. Well, let's look ahead here. You just were kind of crunching some of the numbers,

02:41and looking at some of the temperature departures, because that is a huge role here

02:44in some of our leaf colors changing. What can you tell us about this, Matt?

02:48Yeah, you look at the temperature departures, that means you're probably seeing more sunshine.

02:52The only bad thing about it is, in the eastern Rockies and western plains, it's been pretty dry

02:57this summer. And so, there's been some stress on the trees. So, it's not going to be spectacular,

03:01but it should be okay, I think, if we get into the peak of the season. It's the rainfall outlook

03:06that we're seeing here. Precipitation, where it's drier going throughout September into early fall,

03:12that's where we're going to probably see our best conditions here, as far as more sunshine.

03:18And the cooler nights, that really brings out the brighter colors as well. So, I think that

03:23that setup is more likely midwest, Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, interior northeast, while the west,

03:29still dealing with some heat stress. I think things will improve, though, as the fall goes on.

03:34All right, final question for you, Paul. Areas like Dallas, Tulsa, Little Rock,

03:38all highlighted as an area that could have a vibrant season. Do they usually have impressive

03:43fall foliage? If not, why does this year look a little bit better than normal? People forget

03:48there are state parks in and around Houston and Dallas and those areas, and they do change in

03:53colors. Unfortunately, it's later into the fall. You got to go into November and early December

03:58before you start seeing the colors down there. But in northwest Arkansas, eastern Oklahoma,

04:02northern Louisiana, it should be really nice, and it should come out probably late October,

04:07early November. The brightness is going to be really good in that part of the country,

04:11because of the fact that we have seen some wet weather and some drier weather now coming on

04:16here in September. Well, Paul, people weren't in the fall season yet. I think you definitely

04:20made everyone really excited here for what's ahead. Lead long-range meteorologist Paul

04:24Pastelak, thanks again for joining us this morning. Yep.

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