ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Howard Neufeld, a former biology professor at Appalachian State University, has applied his botanic expertise to the leaves of Western North Carolina for around 20 years.
Neufeld runs a website and Facebook page called Fall Color Guy, where he updates the public on when and where to catch the changing leaves every autumn through his “Fall Color Reports,” and posts environmental news, hiking advice and essays on the science of color change.
Fall Color Guy runs all year round, but Neufeld said that his busy season usually begins in early September.
“This is about the time right now when I start posting about how the trees are doing, because the month of September is really important,” Neufeld said. “Trees have already started turning. Not very many of them, but just a few. So, I start getting a little more active.”
From now until November, Neufeld will work his way from the high elevation mountains of WNC to the North Carolina foothills, capturing the changing leaves as he goes.
“I usually take a hike and photograph how the trees are doing. I try to show people what it looks like, so they can decide if they want to come or not, or if they want to wait a week,” Neufeld said.
Leaves are not all he documents, either.
“I also just do nature photos, because a lot of times, people are looking up at the leaves, but this time of year, there’s a lot of interesting native wildflowers and other plant life that’s very interesting,” Neufeld said. “I’ll take pictures of that and let people know: you can look up and you can look down.”
When will Asheville trees change color in 2026?
Neufeld said that predicting the time of year that leaves change is heavily dependent on two conditions: temperature and sun.
“The warmer September is, the later the colors will be, and especially if it persists into October,” Neufeld explained. “I’m gonna be watching September. Right now, we’re starting off with this major heat wave, near-record temperatures, so that doesn’t bode well. It suggests maybe we might have some delay unless it gets cool.”
The biologist said that while trees can sense that fall is coming from the shortening length of a day, but that is not all they need for leaves to change.
“Trees can sense the day length, and so that’s kind of a cue to them that when the days get to a certain length, it’s gonna be cold, usually. That’s a way they can prepare for the fall,” Neufeld said. “But at the same time, they’re also sensing the temperature.”
Some trees, like dogwoods, will start changing colors in July, regardless of temperature. However, others, like red maples and sugar maples, will stay green the longer it stays warm.
“When you get a warm year, those trees that are sensitive to temperature tend to be delayed, so it spreads the peak out, kind of dilutes it, so to speak, because you’re not having all the trees peak at once. You’re having them do it over a longer period of time,” Neufeld said. “So, for people looking at the colors, they don’t look quite as good.”
As Asheville waits to see whether the September heat wave will subside, fall color hunters can start preparing all the same. Data has demonstrated that Oct. 10-20 is a reliable range to expect the leaves to change.
“If you ask when the peak color is going to happen, it’s mostly going to be at the same time as the historic average, and that’s somewhere between the 10th and the 20th at the mid elevations. Like, 3,000, 3,500 feet,” Neufeld said. “When I look at it, 15 out of the last 18 years have had part of the peak in that time period. That’s 85% of the time. So, I think you can pretty much count on mid-October being close to peak, unless it’s an unusually warm year.”
If the heat wave does last, the changing leaves might be delayed anywhere from 10 days to two weeks, as they were in 2018 and 2019. There is one other factor to watch out for, too, Neufeld said.
“The other thing that can affect your experience is if we get a hurricane like Hurricane Helene. But even if we don’t get something that destructive, if we just get us really strong rain and windstorms near peak color, that can take a lot of leaves down,” Neufeld said. “It happened once about 10, 12 years ago. I kept telling everybody, this is the weekend, get up here, and Friday was great, Saturday was spectacular, Saturday night the storm came through and Sunday, the fall color season was over at that elevation.”
No matter the weather forecast – storms, heat or all of the above – Fall Color Guy will have his predictions ready.
For more information about leaf color change in WNC, follow Fall Color Guy updates at www.fallcolorguy.org, or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/FallColorGuy.