Post date: 10/16/2023
Fall Color Report for October 12, 2023Today I went out with NC Public Television to do a segment on fall leaf colors. We met at the Linn Cove Visitors Center and then drove to the Rough Ridge Trail. We hiked up to the boardwalk, where we did most of the filming. On the way to the visitor’s center I stopped along the Parkway and took some pictures of Grandfather and various views. Those photos are appended to this report.There’s still quite a bit of green out there, but plenty of patches of color across the landscape. Last week’s warming has delayed color development, but the forecast for...
Post date: 10/10/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of October 8, 2023I posted about my trip on Friday with WXII-TV meteorologist James Scott yesterday, along with photos of my hikes on the Rough Ridge Trail and the one that goes to the Linn Cove Viaduct alongside the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP). Today, I provide some more photos of my trip with my colleague Dr. Eduardo de Campos, who was making his first visits to all these locations. Eduardo comes to us from Brazil and is a 2nd year professor of chemistry at Appstate.In this posting I provide pictures from our trips to Wisemans View in the Linville Gorge...
Post date: 10/10/2023
Fall Color Report for Oct 6-2023Yesterday (Friday) I went out with James Scott from WCCB-TV in Charlotte to talk about fall leaf colors. The link to the report is included here. https://www.wccbcharlotte.com/.../forecasting-foliage.../ We went to the Rough Ridge Trail just north of the Linn Cove Viaduct, one of the most popular trails on the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP). As expected, for a Friday as we near peak color, it was crowded. Nonetheless we took off and did the interview on the boardwalk that is about 1/3 of the way up.The day was partly cloudy but began to clear just after we...
Post date: 10/03/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of Oct 1, 2023This week I traveled to Roan Mountain on the NC/TN border along with a colleague from the Chemistry Department at Appstate, Eduardo de Campos, who hails from Brazil. This was his first foray to the mountain and also to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Go to the Fall Color Guy page to see explanations of the photos in the folder posted here.Roan is an easy drive from Linville, NC (about 35 minutes) and about 1 hour from Boone. Just head into TN from Elk Park, NC on US 19E, turn left at the sign for Roan Mountain State Park, and 10 miles or so later you’ll...
Post date: 09/25/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of September 25, 2022 Today I went on a fall color excursion to Craggy Gardens and Mt. Mitchell accompanied by two of my students, Hannah Lilly, and Leigha Henson. Trees are coloring up nicely above 4,500’, although green is still dominant. However, there are individual trees in full color, adjacent to others that are just starting, which themselves are adjacent to yet others that are mostly green. In another week, if the weather remains cool, colors should be fine at these high elevations. We had an exciting encounter with a bald eagle just before we...
Post date: 09/18/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of September 17, 2023Green! Green! Green! Green! Green! Red! Green! Green! Green!That about describes the state of the fall colors for this week. With the occasional red maple that has turned red, and the dogwoods, which are nearing peak color, the rest of the trees along the Blue Ridge Parkway (BRP) and in the mountains of North Carolina, are still quite green. However, there are some signs of the upcoming fall color season, but we still have several weeks to go before we get to peak color.On Saturday I went to Craggy Gardens (about 20 miles north of Asheville...
Post date: 09/11/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of September 10th, 2023I didn't get to post a full fall color report for this week, due to exhaustion from my bout with COVID. I'm slowly getting back to normal, so please be patient. And thanks to everyone (Everyone!) for all the kind words over the past week about getting better. I am on the mend; it just takes time!With regard to fall color updates, nothing much to report. Forests are still all green, but this coming weekend I will be checking out the highest elevations to see if things are starting up. We are having cooler days and especially cooler nights,...
Post date: 09/06/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of September 3, 2023I’m a day late with the report for this week, but I’ve been under the weather since last Thursday with some flu-like bug and it sapped all my energy such that I was laid up all day Saturday. It unfortunately caused me to cancel my trip to Atlanta to see my son and his wife and my new grandson, but better to not give them what I got! Plus, it so wiped me out that I couldn’t have endured the long drive down. And no, it wasn’t COVID – I tested negative for that. Oh well, I’ll see them another time!The other bummer is that Spectrum and Disney are...
Post date: 09/06/2023
Fall Color Report for the Week of September 3, 2023 I’m a day late with the report for this week, but I’ve been under the weather since last Thursday with some flu-like bug and it sapped all my energy such that I was laid up all day Saturday. It unfortunately caused me to cancel my trip to Atlanta to see my son and his wife and my new grandson, but better to not give them what I got! Plus, it so wiped me out that I couldn’t have endured the long drive down. And no, it wasn’t COVID – I tested negative for that. Oh well, I’ll see them another time! The other bummer is that Spectrum...
Post date: 08/29/2023
Fall Color Report for Week of August 27th, 2023I am asked each year whether I expect this year’s fall colors to be “on time”, or whether they will be late. I admit that I often forget when they occurred in previous years, so I have a difficult time answering this question.Last year I went back over all my fall color reports from 2008 to 2021 (14 years’ worth of reporting) to determine what week I told people would be peak color time for each of those years. This year, I have added in 2022 and revised the statistics. The numbers I report are for the Boone-Blowing Rock drive along the Blue...