AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Expert Paul Pastelok discusses the AccuWeather Fall Foliage Forecast.

AccuWeather's 2025 fall foliage forecast outlines the main environmental factors that contribute to vibrant autumn colors. According to lead long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok, abundant rainfall during the growing season, followed by sunny and drier early fall conditions, are crucial for developing the sugars that produce bright leaf colors. Cooler nights also help trees transition, revealing hidden pigments as chlorophyll fades.

The forecast suggests the central United States is likely to experience the most vibrant foliage due to favorable summer moisture and expected sunlight. The northeast may also see good color, though recent dryness could pose some risk to leaf retention. Areas in the west, such as the Great Basin and Rockies, may see less impressive displays due to drought stress, which can cause leaves to fall early and reduce color vibrancy.

Factors for good fall foliage

Accuweather has released its 2025 fall foliage forecast. Joining us to break it all down is Paul Pastalak, Accuweather's lead long-range forecaster. Paul, first, let's give people an idea of what factors are needed for a vibrant season. Yeah, I just want to go back to that video you showed. If you noticed, some of the trees were starting to lose some of that bright green tint, so they have lightened up in places across the northeast. In fact, I traveled eastward and saw some of the leaves changing already, and so we're starting to get into that factor, so you're starting to see the lightening of the trees right now, so it looks good. Yeah, let's get into those factors right now. This is very important, and you look at the number one factor, and the thing is you want to avoid stress at all costs before the season starts, and so abundant rainfall during the course of the growing season, late spring and summer, is very, very important, and then sunshine and drier conditions that follow going into early fall. You want to see that bright sunshine because, I'll get to that, it actually, actually, I'll tell you now, it does develop the sugars inside the leaves that gives you those bright colors, and then the cooler nights to help the trees shut down, and those leaves, those pigments start to come back out as the chlorophyll starts to just dismise, you know, you get rid of the chlorophyll, the greenness that comes in the leaves, and then all of a sudden those pigments that are hidden behind, all those colors come bright up to the front, and then other factors that we got to watch out for that we can see and predict, late frost and major wind storms, those are negatives, the wind storms, as far as trying to get the leaves to stay on the trees, Anna. So that's what we need to get to the end result. I know I can't wait to go on those drives looking at all the colors on the trees, and I know I'm not the only one, so what areas of the country are expected to experience the most vibrant foliage this year? Well, if you look, you know, probably at the middle of the nation, first of all, because I think you're going to see a bright area there on a map that shows basically the best viewing because of the fact that they've had some moisture in the mid to latter part of the summer season. It's been a little back and forth, so the trees are not stressed. In addition, they're going to be probably seeing some drier conditions from time to time, just important enough to get sunlight to help with the development of those sugars and bring those brighter colors out and also less wind events that probably just to the north. I'm worried about some early leaf foliage foliage coming down in parts of Minnesota and Dakotas. Now, the other parts of the country that looks pretty good is the northeast. Unfortunately, though, we had a little bit of dryness here in August, so we got to be cautious that these leaves can stay on the trees and did not get stress that the trees from that dry period in August. We saw some of this last year in the middle of fall where we had the fires that actually develop in the northeast and we lost a lot of leaves and the colors weren't as good. Now, also, if we can avoid any tropical systems the rest of the year in the Carolinas, the eastern Carolinas could look pretty good as well. So that may be another area later on in the fall season. All right, we're going to be watching that closely for sure now. Timing is everything to what areas of the country could see the leaves change earlier than normal and why? Yeah, the reason is is because of the fact that if you develop there's a there's a layer called an abscission layer. It's a it's a it's a layer of cells that separates the tree branch from the leaf. If you develop that too early, what happens is is the leaves start to crumble and fall apart and they fall off early because of cold fronts coming through and wind events. So you don't want that to happen early. If the tree if it's warm out during the course of September and things end up staying a little bit later on the trees, you start to lose that disconnect from the from the loss of sunlight hours. So you can actually have foliage too late in the seasons. But early on, you got to watch out for this. Maybe the stress of drought that we could see, especially in the west, the Great Basin area, the Rockies. That's an area of the country that may see not so good on the fall foliage because of this early development of that abscission shutting down the tree branch disconnect of water and nutrients get into the leaves. Yeah, we already have drought conditions settling in. You talked about the northeast as well. It's been a dry August and it shows on the drought monitor. It does. You can see it well and we just didn't have a great monsoon season. At least it shut down in the second half. It's starting to pick up a little bit now, but it may be a little bit too late and those dry conditions will put stress on the trees and again they will shut down early and those leaves will crumble off a little faster and you kind of lose some of that vibrant colors as well. Paul, you've done a lot of work forecasting what to expect for the rest of the month with temperatures, precipitation. Take us through it. Precipitation is important going into early fall. We want to see a little bit more sunlight. That's important. It again helps with the photosynthesis process, converting light energy to chemical energy and building up those sugars and then you want the cool down as well. On top of that, the cooler temperatures to follow because of the fact that that will keep those sugars in the leaf and not escape back to the tree. So you want to make sure that you can keep them in there and get those bright purples and reds that we like to see when we go out checking out the foliage. All right, AccuWeather lead long-range forecaster Paul Pastelok, thanks for joining us and breaking all of that down.

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