00:00Leading into the start of the fall season, the fall foliage forecast all can be seen on accurate.com.
00:04The beautiful fall background, which I was oohing and aahing at right now.
00:08And you can see the leaves changing behind me.
00:10But, Paul, for some of us in the northeast, we're like, isn't this a little early?
00:13It is.
00:14And if you looked at that image carefully, you had kind of a mix of green and orange and yellows.
00:21And I'm talking about individual trees.
00:24So they're not completely turning that quickly.
00:27And that's going to extend the season probably longer.
00:31It's going to take time for the trees to completely go through its full process.
00:36What's been early is that cool that we had in late August, early September.
00:40And the dryness that occurred in August as well has put a lot of stress on the trees.
00:46You can see the drought monitor on your screen right now.
00:49Lots of drought, abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions all the way from the Tennessee Valley up through the northeast.
00:55And some of those sensitive trees have shut down the process of the water and sugars getting back into the leaves.
01:01This little layer called the abscission layer has formed early on.
01:05And some of those leaves are either falling or we're starting to see the colors earlier than we've seen over the past couple of years.
01:11So people who maybe have been watching the forecast this morning, Paul, are like, well, we're getting some rain back into the Midwest and northeast.
01:17Is that going to make a difference?
01:19You phrased it kind of funny to me earlier.
01:20Yeah, it's a little bit late.
01:22I mean, it's a little bit late.
01:23We could have used that rain in August, kept the trees less stressful.
01:27But now it looks like we're going to see kind of a mix of colors, more duller, not maybe those bright reds, unless the sunlight and the cool nights that go forward help out.
01:39Sunlight during September, dry conditions, and also cool nights brings out those purples and reds.
01:45But are the trees already too far past now?
01:49Is it too stressed?
01:50And I think you're going to see a lot of those colors, those yellows and more oranges in parts of the Appalachians and the mid-Atlantic states, but still vibrant, but maybe not lasting too long in parts of the northeast.
02:01Some people like their snow and fall.
02:03I prefer mine in winter.
02:05But for those snow lovers, those who want to go skiing, snowboarding, or just even see some flakes falling at their house, who could see some of the first possible snow this season?
02:14I just can't believe we're talking about this already.
02:16I mean, it's amazing.
02:16I mean, we did have that cool spot in the early part of September in the east, but I think things are going to stay mild for a little while.
02:24But another change might be coming on as we get into the beginning of October.
02:28Some of these cold fronts are going to have a little more robustness with them and some cold air on the back side of it.
02:34The source regions in Alaska and Canada are not very cold yet, but I think they will.
02:38And you'll see the Cascades get a little bit of snow, higher elevations of probably Colorado a little early.
02:43And also the upper Midwest and northern Plains.
02:47That's another area that we're focusing on for mid to late October that could start to see some snow.
02:52You can see some of the timelines we have set up.
02:54Chicago probably waits until about early, mid-November.
02:57A little earlier than average in parts of the Midwest and the northern Plains.
03:01Probably more typical when you look at the northwest and the northeast.
03:04All right, that's kind of the fun part of fall, but fall is also the secondary peak of severe weather season.
03:11And as you mentioned, we've already seen some tornadoes so far this fall season.
03:14Yeah, we saw a big outbreak already in the Dakotas down towards Nebraska earlier on in this month.
03:19And I still feel that we have more.
03:22You guys just talked about that.
03:23We have the possibility of severe weather coming in the short term.
03:26There's going to be more of that.
03:28There's going to be more cold fronts, more contrast.
03:30Remember, the Gulf is really warm right now.
03:32You have that contrast setting up, and you also have some of those cold shots that could come down in mid-late October.
03:38That's going to set up right in the middle of the country that we have here from Memphis, Kansas City, Cincinnati.
03:43Even Chicago could get into the act.
03:45Even the possibility of some isolated tornadoes in October and then shifting a little farther south and east in November.
03:51AccuEther lead long-range expert Paul Pastelak, we thank you always for joining us and sharing your expertise.
03:57No problem.
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