Connecticut Foliage Forecast: Wet Summer Could Make For A Spectacular Foliage Season | Companies

HARTFORD, Connecticut – This year’s wetter than usual summer should add to a glorious fall foliage season, according to one of Connecticut’s top forest experts.

Jeffrey S. Ward, chief forestry and horticultural scientist at Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, said that despite the gypsy moths in some pockets in the spring, widespread leaf diseases that invaded the roots of the trees were kept at bay during the spring and summer storms which keep them healthy and strong.

“We had a lot of deep, soaked rain. When you drive around you see a lot of deep, dark green colors and that is great. If the trees are healthy when they fall, they are more likely to have great colors, ”said Ward. “I think this year will be one of those great years.”

Gary Lessor, chief meteorologist at the Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University, said the average spring temperature was slightly higher than normal but the rains were higher than normal, ranking it as the third wettest summer on record after 1955 and 2013.

Those deep, soaked rains, Ward said, are already starting to break down chlorophyll and turn the leaves on some trees. “Some of the trees bordering swamps and wetlands are turning a little earlier because the soil is soaked, which puts pressure on these trees earlier than normal,” he said.

Still, the traditional foliage season begins in October.

Northern counties of Litchfield and Windham will peak in the week of October 3-8, according to the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection website. These entire counties, as well as northern Hartford Counties and all of Tolland Counties, begin peak season on the week of October 9-15.

Counties of Northern Litchfield and Windham will peak on October 16-23, by which time all of Counties Hartford and Tolland and the northern reaches of Counties New Haven, New London and Fairfield will peak.

Through October 24-30, Middlesex, New Haven, and Fairfield counties will join the state at its peak or after the peak, with the exception of small coastal areas east of New Haven and west of Bridgeport, which will open week 7-14 November will peak. By mid-November, the entire state is said to have peaked.

Here in the Central Susquehanna Valley, lace colors should appear around October 18th and last for the next two weeks after that.

Ward said heavy rain during the weeks when the leaves are reddest could dampen the colors.

“The red pigments are soluble in water. Heavy rain washes the colors a little, ”he said.

Ward said he anticipates the ongoing coronavirus pandemic will dampen leaf-gazing tourism somewhat.

“People come from all over the world to see the colors of a normal year. Most years just try to get a hotel room in October. This year we will have these colors to ourselves because there is no international tourism, ”he said.

Christine Castonguay, interim director of the Connecticut Office of Tourism, also spearheaded the decline in overseas tourism during the pandemic-era.

“We don’t expect international travel in its normal form this year,” she said.

Castonguay didn’t have a season breakdown, but it said tourism accounts for $ 15.5 billion in annual revenue and $ 2.2 billion in tax revenue in a normal year.

Castonguay’s office hopes to fill the streets, restaurants and hotels anyway by focusing on local tourists. She anticipates catching up, and Connecticut’s high vaccination rates will help attract tourists to the state’s green spots.

Earlier this month, the tourism bureau announced a fall tourism marketing campaign, Full Color Connecticut. The $ 1.4 million campaign is nearly three times the amount normally spent to lure leaf scouts into the state and will reach as far as Philadelphia. The marketing push typically reaches Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

“It was a bit of a challenge to end the summer coming into the fall with the Delta variant,” said Castonguay.

“The Connecticut tourism and hospitality sector is one of the hardest hit during the pandemic. We want to support these companies and help them recover. “

Copyright 2021 Tribune Content Agency.