Weather University: Fall foliage and the tropics

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Stormtracker 8 Meteorologists Jacqueline Waters and Tyler Hall sat down in the WRIC NOW livestreaming studio to talk about fall foliage and to give viewers a tropics update.

The tropics have been relatively quiet this season — with the exception of Debby — but there is some new activity to keep an eye out for as the peak of hurricane season approaches on Tuesday, Sept. 10.

“We do have a lot of activity in the tropics right now — so just to start we have potential tropical cyclone six which is in the Gulf of Mexico right now,” Waters said. “[It’s] not super organized, [there’s] a lot of moisture, a lot of convection but you don’t see that clear defined eye and winds right now [are] 50 miles per hour.”

Although they are mostly concerned with hurricane potential during September, Waters and Hall still make time to talk about the other things the season brings — fall foliage and football!

“We usually start to see that peak around mid-October,” said Waters in regard to the fall foliage forecast for central Virginia.

Waters and Hall also talked about why people are able to see the leaves change color as we enter the fall months, attributing the change to a chemical breakdown, a lack of direct sunlight as days get shorter, and cool temperatures. However, there are several different factors that can affect leaf peeping opportunities, especially moisture.

“There’s always a multitude of factors that go into having an ideal or not-ideal foliage season, so weather plays a role in everything we think of, including fall foliage. Fingers crossed, as Jacqueline mentioned earlier, we get some good rain later on this month. You want a good dosing of wet and dry conditions for sure,” Hall said.

For an August weather recap, make sure to check out the previous episode of Weather University. Watch more livestream content on the WRIC NOW page.

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