Columbus (WCMH) – Autumn officially arrived today here in Columbus, and it is coming in with one of the warmer starts on record.   In fact, our warm temperatures this Summer along with dry weather may provide us with a bit more viewing times for Fall colors this year.

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources released a forecast for this season, (you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/20Q6XAQ4EqA).   In it, Fall Color Forester, Casey Burdick explains how our Summer being hotter and drier caused stress to trees which will cause some initial stress colors.

Yes, the Summer was a few degrees above normal on average, and if you look at the books, we did finish slightly above normal for rainfall, but that was due to a few very heavy rainfall events.   If you take away the few more extreme events, it was in general a dry Summer.   In fact, we had expanded drought conditions in much of the state.

As Casey Burdick explains in the video, trees in urban areas, and in low lying spots could start changing colors as soon as next week, phase one of the color changes.   But if we can get some rain showers in the next few weeks, we should see beautiful color changes this year.Normally (below) is the peak of color changes we see in Ohio:

However, because of the warmer & drier summer, it is noted by ODNR that we could see general peak colors in the state a bit later than normal.The forecast for 2016 Peak Leaf Color (below) according to ODNR:

You may notice some trees changing colors in your yard or your favorite park soon, much of this could be due to stress from the past few months on the trees.

If you have questions about fall colors, temperatures, or any other weather questions, send me an email: dmazza@wcmh.com

Also, if you have any pictures this Fall, we would love to share them.  You can use the same email from above, use our Storm Team 4 Weather App, or use #stormteam4 on social media… don’t forget to tag me too @davidnbc4

-Dave