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Buckeye Beat: Fall Foliage

fall foliage
fall foliage

[Lisa] Fall foliage arrived late in northeast Ohio, but Cleveland Metroparks' naturalist Marty Calabrese says better late than never.

- Right now, we are seeing the yellows, the greens, oranges, and reds, so everything behind me, the full spectrum, but it is late and why? So we've calculated it's at least 14 days behind.

[Lisa] Calabrese says lots of rain in late summer and above average temperatures in early fall are to blame. Trees lose their leaves when they're under stress, and the past few months just haven't been very stressful. But now, colder temperatures are here, and it's sending a signal to Mother Nature.

- As winter marches forward, fall is cuing those trees to pull back on their chlorophyll production, to decrease photosynthesis, allowing the photosynthetic partner of chlorophyll, the xanthophylls and carotenes, which are the yellows and orange pigments that we see, allowing those to shine through.

[Lisa] This natural artwork won't be around for long. Calabrese says the colorful leaves will stay as long as the weather remains above freezing and it's not too windy, but that's in a perfect world.

- Yeah, any day now, the weather's gonna tank. We are gonna get high winds, we are gonna get heavy rain. So get out there See these colors. Cleveland Metroparks is your one-stop destination for seeing this multi-hued, this variety, the full package of fall foliage.