Posted by Steve Luther on August 21, 2015 at 7:24 PM
For those of you who have lived in the NW a while what your thoughts are on how the fall foliage may be this year? Given the extreme drought, and already seeing a fair number of trees turning, losing leaves, having dead leaves and generally looking very stressed, if this is just going to be a down year? I can equate this summer and the condition of what I'm seeing in the trees at this stage to several years when I was living in Colorado, when there were the same conditions, and the fall foliage was just really dull or the color very limited and gone early. I thought last year's display here in the NW was good even though it seemed a bit late, but others have told me it wasn't nearly as vibrant as previous years.
Posted by Steve Kennedy on August 23, 2015 at 10:54 AM
I thought last year the fall color was poor compared to most years. I believe this year will be significantly worse. I took this photo on a hike last Wednesday in a semi-rain forest. To me it shows how bleak the situation is. I've never seen the area so dry.
I am seeing the same thing - the drought has put the trees and bushes under major stress and many of the leaves are already brown or fallen off. All the fires this year haven't helped. When we started the thread about a fall outing to Leavenworth and Icicle Creek I was pretty excited. Now I'm thinking it will not be worth the effort. But the conditions might change.
Posted by Steve Kennedy on August 23, 2015 at 10:59 AM
I clicked post the comment rather than choose a file. Ooops!
Posted by Steve Luther on August 23, 2015 at 11:36 PM
Thanks very much. Wow those berries look terrible all shriveled up. Fall is my favorite season in general and also for photography, but it's looking really bad for the NW this year. So much so that I'm planning to go elsewhere to shoot to other parts of the country, so at this point I'm not going to plan on the Leavenworth outing because I think it will be so bad this year. Hopefully if and when we get any rain in the coming weeks it might make some sort of difference, but I'm not very optimistic.
Here's a message from Greg Vaughn taken from Facebook on the possibity of fall colors at Icicle Creek area.....
"According to the meteorologist interviewed in the link above, this summer's heat and dryness will mean fall color coming earlier than normal this year. She doesn't mention anything about the quality of the color however. From what I know, I'd say that it probably will not be a very good year, and many leaves will fall before developing much color or just turn brown and then fall with a little wind or rain.
That said, I think riparian areas like Icicle Creek could still show some nice color due to the proximity of water for the trees. And if the color is spotty, we can go with telephoto and macro lenses rather than aiming for overall landscapes."
Foliage in the Mt Hood area is changing fast. Vine maples were getting red / orange on Labor Day. Some look dry, browing too. If there is color it will be early.
Discussion
5 repliesFor those of you who have lived in the NW a while what your thoughts are on how the fall foliage may be this year? Given the extreme drought, and already seeing a fair number of trees turning, losing leaves, having dead leaves and generally looking very stressed, if this is just going to be a down year? I can equate this summer and the condition of what I'm seeing in the trees at this stage to several years when I was living in Colorado, when there were the same conditions, and the fall foliage was just really dull or the color very limited and gone early. I thought last year's display here in the NW was good even though it seemed a bit late, but others have told me it wasn't nearly as vibrant as previous years.
I thought last year the fall color was poor compared to most years. I believe this year will be significantly worse. I took this photo on a hike last Wednesday in a semi-rain forest. To me it shows how bleak the situation is. I've never seen the area so dry.
I am seeing the same thing - the drought has put the trees and bushes under major stress and many of the leaves are already brown or fallen off. All the fires this year haven't helped. When we started the thread about a fall outing to Leavenworth and Icicle Creek I was pretty excited. Now I'm thinking it will not be worth the effort. But the conditions might change.
I clicked post the comment rather than choose a file. Ooops!
Thanks very much. Wow those berries look terrible all shriveled up. Fall is my favorite season in general and also for photography, but it's looking really bad for the NW this year. So much so that I'm planning to go elsewhere to shoot to other parts of the country, so at this point I'm not going to plan on the Leavenworth outing because I think it will be so bad this year. Hopefully if and when we get any rain in the coming weeks it might make some sort of difference, but I'm not very optimistic.
Here's a message from Greg Vaughn taken from Facebook on the possibity of fall colors at Icicle Creek area.....
"According to the meteorologist interviewed in the link above, this summer's heat and dryness will mean fall color coming earlier than normal this year. She doesn't mention anything about the quality of the color however. From what I know, I'd say that it probably will not be a very good year, and many leaves will fall before developing much color or just turn brown and then fall with a little wind or rain.
That said, I think riparian areas like Icicle Creek could still show some nice color due to the proximity of water for the trees. And if the color is spotty, we can go with telephoto and macro lenses rather than aiming for overall landscapes."
Foliage in the Mt Hood area is changing fast. Vine maples were getting red / orange on Labor Day. Some look dry, browing too. If there is color it will be early.