What affects fall foliage

One of my favorite things about fall is seeing the trees make weird colors, something that will be happening in the coming month. Here we have a map of the times that the United States sees the peak color in the fall, and as we can see higher elevations and latitudes, places that generally get colder quicker could be seeing peak colors now, while us in Michiana can expect peak colors in around a month, with late October being prime time.

Experts say a dry end to summer can delay leaves changing their color, and a generally warm fall lessens the chance to see as vibrant of colors. What you want to see is warm days and cool nights, with warm sunny days creating sugars, and the cool nights keeping those sugars in the leaves, which is what the leaf pigments besides chlorophyll feed off of to be produced. Chemicals that create the red pigment definitely need these, but yellow and gold colors are typically what a tree will produce no matter what weather conditions are.