We’re deep into leaf-peeping season, and it looks to be pretty good in New Hampshire this year. Still, you might want to know exactly how good it is. Average? Above average? Best ever?
Asking North Country folks is problematic. Business owners say it’s awesome no matter what because they want us to visit and spend money, while locals say it’s better in Vermont because they’d rather we’d go away and not clog up their commute by gawking at maple trees.
I wouldn’t listen to either of those. So, who?
Years ago, former UNH professor Barry Rock’s team was working a way to quantify changes in New England’s autumnal splendor, a sort of Foliage-O-Meter. They performed spectral analysis on satellite photos from year to year, getting objective measurements of the yellows, oranges and reds that draw the crowds.
The goal wasn’t to boost tourism but to provide another measure of how climate change was altering the ecosystem. Call it an autumn version of winter charts showing changes in snowfall.
Alas, the program shut down due to lack of funding after a couple of years, before it had developed enough data to say. Rock did say to me in 2015 that he thought New Hampshire was beginning to see the decline of the sugar maple due to climate change, local pollution, invasive species, disease and development, but that was just his opinion. If so, that would shift our color spectrum from reds toward golds.
I suspect the funding could have ended because nobody really wants to know whether our foliage is actually getting duller. Leaf-peeping is too big a part of our history and culture to be tainted by facts!
So despite the plethora of leaf-peeping maps online and colorful charts on TV newscasts and YouTubers announcing “Peak foliage is here, subscribe to my channel!”, your opinion is as good as any.
And to an extent, it doesn’t really matter. Even a crummy foliage season is pretty good.
So get out and enjoy it while it’s here, and don’t fret about the historical ranking.
