Lack Of Storms, Nice September, Lead To Great Vermont Fall Foliage

Maple leaves starting to turn in my St. Albans, Vermont yard
on Wednesday. 

Late summer and early autumn weather in Vermont turned out to be just the recipe for a great fall foliage season.

The foliage is peaking in much of the state now and a lot of people are saying it's the best in years.

Judging from what I see when I'm driving around, and from the social media posts I've seen, I can believe it.

Everything fell into place this year. A somewhat dry summer slightly stressed trees, which some say can bring out the reds.  

A too-warm early autumn can delay and dim the colors, but this year the weather has been seasonable.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, September weather has a big influence. If you have a lot of warm, sunny days and chilly nights without a lot of hard freezes, things work out great. That's just the kind of September we had.

Unlike much of the rest of the nation, Vermont is in for seasonable weather without a lot of rain or wind over the next several days, so viewing should be great.  No storms will blow a lot of leaves off tree just yet.

So go out there and enjoy the foliage!

"Superbloom" Dazzling California And Arizona; Stupid People Threaten To Ruin It

A view of this year's Super Bloom in California

A spectacular "super bloom" is engulfing desert areas of California and Arizona after a very wet winter re-energized plants in arid parts of the southwest.

Hillsides there are dazzling with acres and acres and acres of red poppies, along with lupine, phacelia, popcorn flower, lily, snapdragon and varieties of sunflower.

The result are hillsides so colorful that they - I hate to say it - are at least as stunningly gorgeous if not more so than the fall foliage that brings millions of tourists here to Vermont.   Even photos from space are capturing the gorgeous colors of this super bloom

Newsweek calls this "perfect storm" conditions for a super bloom, but of course storm is not what comes to mind when you see photos and videos of these flowers. But storms are why they are there.

In some spots, wildfire heat and smoke can prime the pump to germinate seeds. If it rains a lot in the months following these fires, ideal conditions develop for super blooms.

Which is happening this year.

Of course, everybody wants to see this super bloom, and that brings out the idiots.

The ecosystem in these super bloom sites is fragile, and visitors really must stay on marked trails or else they'll damage the plants and soil, forever wrecking future super blooms. But of course some people don't, because their own Instagram shots are far more important that the blooms, and the future enjoyment of other visitors.

Apparently, getting "likes" on Instagram is much more important than preserving parks for future super blooms.

So they lay down in the flowers for the glamour shot. And doing so means flowers won't grow back in that spot for ages. Thanks a lot, scummy "fashion models!"

In Lake Elsinore, California, officials had to close down access to Walker Canyon becaue the roads, including Interstate 15, got so clogged with visitors. Area officials started a shuttle service, costing $10 per person, to bring things down to a dull roar.

This recent satellite photo clearly shows the bright colors of
this year's super bloom in southern California.

Many of the visitors were also not prepared. These are hiking trails. Outdoors. In nature. And weather.

So people got stuck or mildly injured because they didn't bring decent hiking shoes, proper clothing and water. Plus, some were not in good enough physical shape to hike.

One particularly entitled pair decided to set a helicopter down this past Tuesday in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, says the Los Angeles Times.

Obviously, there is no airport or landing pad in the reserve. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

"'We never thought it would be explicitly necessary to state that it is illegal to land a helicopter in the middle of the fields and begin hiking off trail in the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve,' officials said in a Facebook post along with the hashtag #Don'tDoomTheBloom.

'We were wrong.'"

The pair fled in the helicopter when rangers began approaching to find out what the hell these two were thinking. Officials said they are still trying to identify the helicopter and its occupants.

I certainly can't blame people for wanting to see this spectacular show from nature. We all love to see things like this. Most people are pretty responsible about it, too. I just hope as soon as somebody sees some moron doing something damaging, they get called out.

A little bit of public shaming wouldn't hurt, either.

Here's a nice video tour around Lake Elsinore, California recently:



Once this video gets going after the preliminaries, the views are spectacular:

Favorable Weather Bringing On Vermont's Second (And Better!) Foliage Season

Peak spring foliage season in
Richmond, Vermont in May, 2015.  

Vermont tourism officials and pretty much everybody in the state make a big deal out of the state's famed foliage season in the autumn.

And why not? I've lived here all of my 53 years and the foliage in late September and October is beyond fabulous.

However, I think the Vermont Department of Travel and Tourism is missing out on a great marketing opportunity.

It's Vermont's second foliage season, just now getting underway.

It's true, the state's tourism department does tout spring on it website. The maple syrup, the spring skiing, the festivals, the fly fishing.

But why not gush about the amazing scenery this time of year?

After all, zillions of people come up to the Green Mountain State in the autumn to look at the hills, mountains and landscapes that are decidely not green. Beautiful in amazing hues of yellows, oranges and reds, yes, but not especially green.

We should really make some money luring tourists here to watch as the Green Mountain State turns, well, green.

Green is only one color, I get that. But as the buds burst and the leaves unfurl on our trees, there are a million different shades of green. All fresh, beautiful, new green.  It's so overwhelmingly beautiful. I love the season much more than the glory of autumn.

Plus, there's splashes of other colors. Vermonters are famous gardeners, craving color after the many long, gray drab months of winter.

If I had a penny for every daffodil bloom in Vermont, I'd be a thousand times richer than Bill Gates. Same is true if you count up the lilac blossoms in town greens, residential streets and almost every  yard in the state.

You'd swear it's a Vermont state law to have at least one lilac bush in your yard.

We're just on the cusp of Vermont's spring foliage season now and the weather is suddenly cooperating nicely.

In the fall, the state breathlessly announces the stages of color as they progress. There's early stage, when there's a few pops of orange and red amid the green. Then there's mid-stage, which is a nice mix of green and other colors.

We go to near peak, when it's almost perfect, peak foliage, when it's the pinnacle of amazing, then past peak, where it's fading to grey, but there's still very wonderful pockets of color.

For this year'sspring foliage season, Vermont is at early stage. We had a couple of seasonable warm days Friday and Saturday.

Sunday and Monday, we had a good soaking rain. That all left the meadows a luxurious green, and in the valleys, a few trees are showing signs of baby green.

The weather this week is expected to be seasonably mild, with temperatures at least in low elevations likely to get into the low to mid 60s most days. There will be a few showers around.

That, by later this week, will bring us to mid-stage foliage, where a fairly big proportion of trees will have turned green by the weekend, with white splashes of shadbush, Forest floor trillium flowers will accentuate the scenery, but spring will not be in full gear just yet.

Next week, and probably the week after, we'll get into peak season, when we get those myriad shades of spring green, with that lovely pastel hue.

Flowering plants, and late arriving buds in subtle reds, oranges and yellows will make the forests and hills seem perfect. Tulips, lilacs, and other spring blooms will grace every yard in the state.

Towards Memorial Day, we'll get into past peak, when the forests turn into their dark, rich but still lovely summer green.

Why aren't tourism officials tracking these stages of this foliage season? No social media alerts about this wonderful situation? No foliage guides to tell you where in Vermont the foliage is best?

I know, I know, we Vermonters sometimes get a little tired of the tourists and we occasionally need a break. But tourism brings dollars.

And spring here is beautiful. We can share the love of our spring scenery with a few outsiders, I'm sure.