By Mark Okrant

While most people know that summer is New Hampshire’s leading travel season, comparatively few are aware that fall—not winter—is the state’s second most important generator of visitor person-nights and their dollars. Most fall visitors are lured to New Hampshire by a combination of amazing scenery and tax-free shopping opportunities. While this has been true for decades, outdoor recreation and visits to state parks and the national forest are significant secondary purposes for visiting. The six-week period between late September and the last week of October, when fall foliage creates a glorious appearance, has been very compelling for generations.

During the annual foliage season, New Hampshire will attract hundreds of thousands of leaf enthusiasts, each taking advantage of the variety of settings that the state delivers for viewing colorful leaves. Within its comparatively small—9,350 square miles—area, New Hampshire’s foliage can be viewed with backdrops ranging from magnificent mountains, glacial u-shape valleys, beautiful lakes, and its small, rugged seacoast. Meteorologist Mel Allen, editor of Yankee Magazine, once declared that there is no better place in the world to view fall foliage than in New England.

What conditions produce the foliage that lures people to New Hampshire from throughout the US and internationally? Photosynthesis makes it possible for leaves to produce their typical green color that lasts from early spring, throughout summer, into early fall. The key component in this process is chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is needed for plants to be able to turn sunlight into glucose that, in turn, feeds the trees. Many millions of these chlorophyll cells saturate the leaves, ultimately making them appear green to the human eye.

Warm days accompanied by cool nights deliver the best combination for the production of fall colors. As nighttimes are accompanied by increasingly colder temperatures, the soil water that had supported chlorophyll cells begins to block this process, thereby gradually bringing production of this green plant pigment to a halt. The result is the appearance of the true color of each leaf—one that always was present, but had been camouflaged by the presence of chlorophyll.  

What kind of 2022 foliage season has been forecasted for New Hampshire? According to Jim Salge of Yankee Magazine, “we feel that the foliage will be on time across far northern New England, but it will trend later than normal the farther south you go. The wave of peak color will start in late September as usual; after that, its southerly progression may slow or stall, leading to foliage color lingering into November in extreme southern New England.” 

Even with a good setup in New England this year, the best fall color will happen only if the autumn weather cooperates. Bright hues are brought out by warm, sunny days and cool, crisp nights — a combination that not only accelerates the demise of green chlorophyll, but also kick-starts the formation of red color pigments (which are produced only in autumn, as a sort of sunscreen for leaves).

As always, foliage conditions will be hard to call, as there was very little precipitation throughout spring and summer until recently. This could be a good news-bad news situation. When an extended period of drought is followed by over watering, it can put stress on deciduous trees. As a further concern, if there were to be a number of storms during September, they would have the potential to create early leaf falls. 

Where the drought has had less impact—especially in the White Mountains—meteorologists say the colors should be spectacular. Outside that area, drought becomes the dominant factor. With warm, sunny days, it can bring about a brief, bright punch of color, but if it stays too warm and dry for long, we’ll see browning and early leaf drop. Some tropical rainfall could be very welcome this fall, as long as it doesn’t come with hurricane winds. 

After having examined several projections, it appears that peak foliage will make its appearance in the Great North Woods during the last week of September or first week of October. By the end of the first week of October, foliage should be at its peak at key viewing spots in the White Mountains, such as the Kancamagus Highway. Two weeks later, in mid-October, a large swath of color from the southwest corner of the state, through central New Hampshire—including the Lakes Region—should be visible. By the third week of October, the best colors will be visible in extreme southern New Hampshire, including the seacoast area. If visitors arrive at the very end of the tenth month, there will be few remnants, as leaf falls will be well underway throughout northern New England. 

There are many ways to view foliage within the state. Outdoor recreation enthusiasts combine leaf peeping with canoeing, kayaking, mountain biking, trail running, and taking a cruise on one of the state’s lakes. Numerous golfers report that their favorite season to play golf in New Hampshire is the fall. 

If you are trying to determine the perfect time to view foliage, the New Hampshire Division of Travel and Tourism Development provides a foliage tracker to help guide times for leaf peeping. There is a text version on the site; however, the Division has provided an easy-to-use interactive map for travelers. Using a map of the seven tourism regions in the state and its accompanying color-coded calendar, visitors are able to determine whether colorful foliage will be: absent, beginning, moderate, peak, or past peak at any given time. To find the Fall Foliage Tracker, go to www.visitnh.gov. Next, click on the “Discover” bar under A Leaf Peeper’s Dream. Updates of foliage conditions may be found by clicking on each of the map’s seven regions.

Just be careful out there while you’re viewing foliage. Fall is always a busy season on the roads and trails throughout the state; and not everyone is minding what they are doing.