MINNEAPOLIS — Autumn starts next week, and with it, the beautiful transition of leaves from green to yellows, oranges, and reds. While it's already begun in a few spots, the process really amps up when the days begin to shorten.
Val Cervenka, with the Minnesota DNR, says it's all kicks off with the shortening of the daylight hours heading into the autumn season:
"(Leaves) changing color is an interesting process. When daylight starts to decrease, the chlorophyll, which is the green part in the leaves, starts to decompose, go away, to be replaced by yellow. So the yellow color is always there, we just can't see it because there's so much chlorophyll in the leaves."
To help with the process: warm, sunny days are best for developing that leaf color followed by cooler nights, but not below freezing. But with as much rain as we've seen this year, including last week, how will that affect the colors this year? It all depends on how healthy the trees are, and one or two rain events, even as the leaves begin to change, won't affect the process too much. But the flooding we've seen could:
"The next week or so we shouldn't be that much affected by what happened last week. The places that are flooded with water and haven't had a chance to dry out this summer, they're going to be affected because those colors may not make it to peak. They may just dry up and fall off because they're just not healthy."
Another thing to keep in mind, just because we saw a wet summer here in the metro doesn't mean everyone else did. Some parts of the state didn't get a lot of water this year, including folks in Duluth and St. Louis County. So they could experience a completely different fall foliage this year than areas to the south.
The bottom line? If you're itching to do some leaf peeping, it doesn't look like you'll have to wait too much longer. The colors are already starting to turn, even right here in the metro.