Fall arrived in Pittsburgh this week. If you love the season, that means days and weeks full of hot cider, holiday planning, flannel sheets, hayrides, crisper air, and cooler temps.
If you don’t love the season, well, you’re one step closer to a frigid winter, monthly glimpses of the sun, the stress of the holiday season, and the return of pumpkin-spiced everything — and we mean everything.
But there’s one thing that both camps can agree on, and that’s the splendor of those colorful leaves.
Fall foliage is a big deal in Pennsylvania. It drives tourism, supporting a cottage industry of tour companies and roadside gourd dealers.
But if you’ve looked out a window lately, you’ve probably noticed things don’t look very fall-like. So when’s that going to change?
Meteorologist Lee Hendricks of the National Weather Service’s Pittsburgh outpost said peak fall foliage could come to the Pittsburgh area as soon as the week of Oct. 8, though it could also be later than that. (Hendricks is a meteorologist, not a soothsayer.)
The good folks at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, meanwhile, put peak fall foliage for the Pittsburgh area closer to the end of October, which is in line with years past.
Why the uncertainty? Blame it on the weather — and some say the changing climate.
Lee predicts a “drier than normal and slightly warmer than normal” autumn this year. That leads to two contradictory things: Less wind and rain shaking leaves off the branches means leaves stay on the trees longer, allowing more time for chlorophyll breakdowns and the vivid colors they produce. But! Warmer temperatures tend to delay peak color. And that combination could mean a more muted or short-lived peak season this year, explained Rachael Mahony, an environmental education specialist at Forbes State Forest.
There’s also the issue of climate change, which experts warn is already impacting leaf peeping seasons in places like New England, making the seasons shorter and later. That’s because warmer temperatures delay fall colors and often mute those colors, too.
In Pennsylvania, Rachael added: “Last year was crazy. We didn’t see peak foliage almost ‘till the beginning of November.”
The same could happen this year.
If you’re a Pittsburgher unable to wait, Rachael suggests making the trip to higher elevations where temperatures will be cooler and the color-change likely to take hold sooner.
You can find some of her recommendations here — Mount Davis in Somerset County, the highest point in Pennsylvania, among them — and the recommendations of the Pennsylvania Tourism Office here.
And if you’re really feeling ambitious, make the trip north to Pennsylvania’s own Grand Canyon. It’s fall, after all, and the colors won’t last.