New England Fall Foliage in a bad year
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6Is there such a thing? I mean, does New England really have a bad year? (the correct answer is YES!)
The current news articles are saying yes and it won’t get any better unless it cools down from September into October. (Has anybody heard of climate change?) but to answer my own question, Yes, no, maybe-ish…
The way I look at it, any year that I get someone’s question about where to go and I can’t point to the map and say with assuredness, HERE! “Here is where great New England fall colors will be found“, then that is a bad year! I’ve been thinking about it and a few years were really difficult because the weather was horrible from Sept to Oct.
Three years stand out, (remember, CBS says I have good fall recall) 🙂 So, 2005, 2011, and 2017 are the ones that come to mind. But I’m only going to focus on 2005. At the end of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. As I look back on September, I was thinking the rain from this would be ok. (be careful what you wish for) It started raining and didn’t stop.
I decided this year, we would go to Maine and stay on the coast. We, I mean, “I” chose a place in Boothbay Maine and we stayed on the ocean. The place will remain unnamed because, well let’s just say it wasn’t a great B&B.
If you asked me today, when “you” should go to this area, I would say 15-20 October. I was still inexperienced and I decided to go a little early 10-15 Oct. So as you can see my first mistake was going a week early.
Weather Matters
We all know this and many of you are coming from a long distance and you are always hoping that the weather will be conducive for viewing the fall colors. Let me say, I was working full-time so I had to take a vacation so my dates were set in stone (so to speak).
I thought I had dodged the bullet as Hurricane Katrina hit us in late Aug to early Sept. So we had nothing to worry about, well not quite. You see it brought the rain and warm temps up from the Gulf with it… So fall colors developed much slower.
Timing is everything
I thought I had nothing to worry about so when tropical storm Tammy made landfall in Florida I wasn’t too worried. In fact, I wasn’t looking at the weather reports until about the 8-9th and I was seeing rain along the Atlantic seaboard. I was sure it would pass… Did you ever feel like the weather would pass?
The next nail in this coffin was Subtropical Depression Twenty-Two which made landfall off New Jersey. It didn’t do damage but what it did is combine with the remnants of Tammy to create more rain in two weeks than New England sees all summer.
You can see in this image what Lisa and I ran into for three days in Boothbay. It was warm and rainy and we did what I tell you all to do when the weather doesn’t cooperate. Go to plan B and find something else to do! So Lisa and I found Lighthouses. Maine has lots of Lighthouses!!!
So instead of great fall foliage images, I captured some lighthouses instead. It doesn’t mean I didn’t see any fall colors. But this was a year with few images compared to other years.
So by the end of
This is what 4 November looked like in Lexington Massachusetts. You see, a late fall due to the weather is nothing new. So when Fall 2019 comes along and I tell you that we’re seeing a week late and a slow turning of the colors…
Jeff Foliage Folger
Autumn is a state of mind more than a time of year – Jeff Foliage
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Hi Jeff, Read through until the end question on “Nah, no one reads this far, or do you?” Ron
Read this far in both meanings . Always have done , always will. Always something to find in “bad” years if you look hard enough
I do read “this far” and enjoy your blog posts all year long!
Thanks… 🙂
I do read this far in advance…I know that some years are much better than others,but I have always found good fall foliage somewhere in traveling through the Adirondacks in NY ,Vermont,New Hampshire and Maine…The peak varies from year to year but usually around the first week in October around Columbus day I have found good color somewhere…I am confident that you will guide all of us to good fall foliage in 2019…Your information has been very accurate and very much appreciated. Thank you very much!!!
I did! Read all the way to the end. It was a very strange year for fall foliage, indeed. We totally missed it visiting the Smokies this year. Oh well….maybe next year.