Well, if Mother Nature took her foot off the gas the past couple of weeks with regard to the changing fall colors, she seems to also be braking a little bit! Contrary to expert predictions at the beginning of the season, we are NOT having an early fall, but rather a late one. With Week 5 upon us, let’s see where the fall color is.
The weather seems to have gotten back to “Fall normal” as we move through the month of October in the North Carolina mountains around Asheville. Cool nights are back, as are sunny days. And it looks like the color that we do have will be lovely for Week 4 of our fall season.
Entering mid-October, elevations above 4,500 feet around Asheville sparkle as the tops of the mountains are crowned in gold tones, with orange and red splashes of color as well. It’s Week 3 of the beautiful fall season in western North Carolina and we’re just getting started! Let’s explore!
It’s been a lovely start to the fall season so far, with pleasant days and cool nights, but a warm end to the first week of October and some rain forecast for the following week may keep color from dashing out of the starting gate at elevations under 5,000 feet. So let’s see where the fall color will shine over the next week or so.
Our fall color reports for 2017 have officially begun! Autumn is a spectacular season in the North Carolina mountains. Find out how to maximize your leaf peeping in the Asheville area each week with our fall foliage reports. It’s Week One. Let’s begin!
Finally(!), oak trees are changing en masse, with bold orange and rust-colored tones dominate the landscape at our elevation of 2,300 feet in the North Carolina mountains. This will be our final fall color report for 2016, and it’s been a beautiful fall season.
While peak color has ended in several areas above 3,500 feet, color remains at elevations below that, including the immediate Asheville area. We still have green leaves on our oak trees, in fact. Fall is going to linger on into November, yay!
Fall color has quickly worked its way down the mountainsides near Asheville, NC, adding some nice hues to the landscape at elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 feet heading into the last part of October. Some oranges and reds are lingering at higher elevations as well, but those areas above 3, 500 feet will be slipping past peak soon.
Oh la la, fall color is making a real splash at elevations above 3,500 feet in the mountains around Asheville, NC, this week, with peak color set to arrive at those elevations over the next few days. Meanwhile, here inside Pisgah National Forest at 2,300 feet, the fall foliage is starting to quickly dominate the landscape in some parts of the forest (as you can see from our cover photo of our labyrinth taken on Oct. 16).
As we enter mid-October, color is slowly but surely progressing at our elevation of 2,300 feet above sea level, inside Pisgah National Forest east of Asheville, NC. Mother Nature is using a mostly-yellow color palette at the moment.
