The color of autumn in 2015 is tinted by smoke, as color spotter Walt Gabler saw today looking west from Ukiah at 6 p.m. He reported that smoke from Lake County’s Valley Fire hangs heavy over Mendocino County, all the way to the coast.
Our autumn outing today was into the Sierra foothills of El Dorado County, where smoke from the Butte fire fouled the air and made eyes sting. Pockets of bigleaf maple along Newtown Road, north of Placerville, are beginning to turn yellow. They don’t usually show until October.
CaliforniaFallColor.com is reluctant to report that autumn is appearing earlier than usual, because most of the areas reported so far as having dropped leaves or showing early color, were because of localized diseases or conditions (e.g., excessive dryness in a given area). Increasingly however, in specific areas there are indications that this autumn may be arriving sooner than in past years, perhaps in response to our fourth year of drought.
A report will be posted tomorrow from Bishop Creek in the Eastern Sierra that supports this view. In the meantime, breathe easily.
Patchy (10 – 50%) – Newtown Road, El Dorado County – A few pockets of bigleaf maple are showing early color.
Just Starting (0 – 10%) – Mendocino County
Definitely the case in San Diego. Places that usually don’t start turning until the beginning of November are already starting to turn due to drought stress.