Here's when you can expect peak fall foliage colors in Evansville and Henderson

EVANSVILLE − Autumn has arrived, and that means crisp fall days and trees ablaze with color are on the way.

So when will nature start painting the trees shades of orange, yellow and red?

Leaves will likely start changing this week, with minimal amounts of color showing, especially in the Henderson, Kentucky, area, according to this 2022 Fall Foliage Map found on the smokeymountains.com website. That is about the same time as last year.

Color will peak between Oct. 31 and Nov. 7 in the Tri-State, according to the map. How colorful fall foliage will be this year depends largely on how much moisture trees received during the summer, which, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, was the third warmest on record.

Parts of the Tri-State and Indiana experienced moderate drought or abnormally dry conditions in June and July, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

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"It's been an unpredictable year. It started off really hot and dry in the beginning of summer, then it turned into a wet, moderate mid-summer and now it's been dry the last two weeks. It's just really, really weird weather," said Shawn Dickerson, arborist for the city of Evansville. "It's been such unpredictable weather, I don't think we can say how it will affect foliage color."

While the lengthy dry stretch of early summer did impact some trees locally, Dickerson said that overall trees are in pretty good health going into the fall season.

Why leaves change colors in the fall

Weather conditions are one of three factors influencing autumn leaf colors, along with leaf pigments and the length of nights, according to the U.S. Forest Service. When leaves start changing color and trees begin dropping leaves is mostly influenced by days becoming shorter and nights growing longer and cooler.

How does it affect color? A series of warm, sunny days and cool but not freezing nights encourage trees to produce lots of sugars in their leaves, according to the Forest Service. The cool nights and the gradual closing of veins going into the leaf help trap those sugars from going out.

Those are the conditions that create the pigments which tint leaves red and purple. Because the pigment responsible for yellow and gold are in leaves all year, those colors stay fairly constant, according to the Forest Service.

Soil moisture also affect fall leaf color. That's where dry conditions can be an influence. Late springs or summer droughts can push back the starting date of fall color, the Forest Service says. An overall warm fall also lowers the intensity of leaf colors.