Unseasonably warm temps will hurt Missouri's fall color display

This year's unseasonably warm temperatures portend a negative impact on the brilliant colors that have long been a fall drawing card for the Missouri Ozarks.

The late-summer conditions including a combination of heat and dryness appear to be speeding up the process by which deciduous broadleaf trees shed their leaves every fall. Typically, as the chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down, their other pigments become visible for a time, creating the spectacular hues associated with fall before the leaves wither and die.

But this year it looks like a different story.

"I will tell you ... fall color will be terrible," said Charlotte Wiggins, spokeswoman for the Mark Twain National Forest, which covers of 1.5 million acres across southern Missouri.

Wiggins said foresters have told her that all of Mother Nature's signals -- such as the size of the acorn crop -- portend a rather dramatic shift in the seasons, with green leaves changing to brown more quickly than usual.

Tim Smith, a naturalist at Roaring River State Park near Cassville, said the comination of heat and dryness have put a lot of stress on trees.

That means fewer reds, oranges and purples, and instead more yellows and browns, said Jon Skinner, an urban forester with the Joplin office of the Missouri Department of Conservation.

A recent survey of trees in parts of Joplin revealed trees already giving up the fight and shedding their leaves.

"These cottonwoods are dropping leaves due to heat stress," Skinner said during a swing through Joplin's Ewert Park, where leaves that are normally supple and yellow in the fall had dried, turned brown and fallen, crunching underfoot.

"It's a defense mechanism," Skinner said. "They (cottonwoods) will shed excess leaves."

He said dogwoods were also feeling the stress, and he expects more yellows than purple out of the sweet gum trees.

"We're not going to get any red, red oaks," he added.

Sumac and sassafras are turning, Skinner noted, as is ivy and Virginia creeper, and he expects some pockets of intense color, particularly in places that had ample moisture.