HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — Fall colors are in full effect in Hampton Roads, with the region either in peak, or just past-peak foliage, according to the state Department of Forestry.
Don’t expect the leaves to last, however. The dry state of affairs across the Commonwealth, and drought conditions in our region, specifically, are forcing trees to drop their leaves at a higher rate than normal.
Cory Swift with the Department of Forestry explained that the trees are transferring water and nutrients to their trunks and roots to conserve resources.
“And so what we saw is that they were a little bit slow to change, but then once they did change, they changed very quickly,” he said. “So in a typical season where we have more rainfall, they might have that color on them for a week, maybe a week and a half [or] as much as two weeks, whereas this year, what we’re seeing is that once the trees reached peak color, they only retained that peak color for a very short period of time, only a few days, and then those leaves started to drop off so the trees.”
The level of drought is not extreme enough to be alarming, though the number of days without rain did set records.
“We’re always going to have drier years,” Swift said. “It’s going to have a toll on an individual trees, but on a landscape scale, we don’t really have a whole lot of reason to be deeply concerned. Really, Hurricane Helene probably had a larger impact on our forests than the drought as far as mortality in our forests.”
The department is worried about fires, however. Oct. 15 through Nov. 30 is considered the fall fire season in Virginia, and the especially dry conditions, coupled with higher levels of leaf litter, make for a dangerous combination.