DROUGHT + FALL COLORS...

It's no secret it's been dry around here... and we know the drought has continued to worsen lately. The rain that we've gotten earlier this week was just a drop in a large, empty bucket.

This is where some rain fell Tuesday with scattered showers and storms:

And this is where we stand with the drought as of September 13th:

You may have noticed some of the leaves already starting to change color as well. There are definitely signs of stress in the trees as a result of the dry weather.

As the days get shorter and the temperatures cool down, the leaves start to change.

However, severe drought can lead to leaves changing color early and the colors not lasting very long. It's still too early to know exactly how the colors will be. Unfortunately sometimes the drought can even lead to the leaves skipping changing all together and falling off.

Usually we start to see the peak colors around here in mid to late October:

We'll have to see how this year pans out and hope for some more rain. We'll discuss the drought further in my next post with the new Drought Monitor update.

Rebecca Kopelman