ST. LOUIS — Sept. 1 marked the start of meteorological fall, which means it is time to start looking ahead to the changing of the leaves.
The fall foliage was a bit disappointing last year, but will this year's show be better? To find that answer, we compared the data and talked with a national expert.
What makes for a good fall foliage season?
Evan Fisher, a meteorologist who founded ExploreFall.com, said temperature is the biggest factor when it comes to changing colors.
"Temperature is kind of our biggest driver of fall foliage," Fisher said. "We do have to wait until the days grow short enough, but once we reach that point in September, temperature takes over and those cool nights are really what we are looking for."
As for the ideal temperature on those fall nights to bring out the best color, Fisher said there is a pretty clear range.
"You don't want 80s or 90s in October, those aren't great and they'll delay the color and actually reduce the brilliance of that color," he said. "And you also don't want freezing temperatures, so it's a pretty narrow range that we're looking for."
Last year, a handful of days in the 90s late in the season helped sap the color from our trees, dimming the display. And there was another factor at play: drought.
We managed to only get 5.85 inches of rain in St. Louis last year from September to November, with less than an inch of that coming in November. Fisher said St. Louis was not alone when it came to drought, but it appears that won't be the case this year.
"Last year was really tough across much of the Midwest, central part of the country, that severe to extreme drought really rocked the trees," he said. "Thankfully we've seen that abate over the last year and we're going into fall 2024 with basically no drought conditions across Missouri and Illinois."
The St. Louis region is already five inches of precipitation ahead of where it was last year, and although the climate prediction center has us under a drier-than-average outlook for these fall months, we are in a better spot than last year.
When you put it all together, Fisher said everything is coming together for a much better fall foliage season.
"Hopefully this year the color's are a lot prettier," he said. "We don't expect that early leaf drop like we had last year, we don't expect burned out colors like we had last year, we kind of seem to be right in that middle ground where we want to be."
While there is still time for conditions to change, Fisher said it will take something extreme to ruin this year's leaf viewing before peak season in October.
"The most concerning timeframe is generally September, that's when things can be made or broken for the season," he said. If you have a drought that lingers into September, that's going to be a problem. If you have 12 inches or rain in September, that's going to be a problem."
When will peak season arrive?
So when can you expect to see an impressive show? Fisher said that will depend on high temperatures throughout the year and the next few weeks.
"All of that warmth, all of that summer precipitation, at the moment that are really leaning toward, inclining toward a later fall foliage season, so we'll be later in October, maybe even early November when those best colors are showing up."