October 9, 2022 - Fall Colors in New England

Fall colors
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The forests of northern New England were nearing peak autumn color on
October 6, 2022. That’s the same date that the Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite
acquired a true-color image of a stunning flush of orange painting the
high elevations between Montreal, Canada to Massachusetts, United
States and from the Adirondacks to the White Mountains.

Each autumn, the changing colors of deciduous leaves paint North
America with glorious shades of yellows, oranges, reds, and browns. The
transition starts in the north and in high elevations as early as
mid-September then sweeps downslope and southward until it is completed
in mid-November. The changing of leaf color in temperate forests
involves several causes and reactions, but the dominant factors are
sunlight and heat.

As daylight begins to shorten in late summer and autumn, tree and plant
leaves produce less chlorophyll, the green pigment that harvests
sunlight for plants to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars.
The subsidence of chlorophyll allows other colorful chemical compounds
contained in the leaves, such as carotenoids and flavonoids, to become
visible.

The leaves of different deciduous tree species (the type that drop
their leaves in the fall) contain a variable mix of pigments, and this
means that they produce different colors in autumn. Oaks generally turn
red, brown, or russet; hickories become golden bronze; aspen and
yellow-poplar turn golden. Maples differ by species. Red maple turns
brilliant scarlet; sugar maple, orange-red; and black maple, yellow.
Leaves of some trees, such as elms, simply become brown. New England’s
forests contain an abundance of deciduous trees and also are rich in
coniferous trees, which do not drop their needles in the fall, but
remain green year-round.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 10/6/2022
Resolutions: 1km (252.7 KB), 500m (668 KB), 250m (1.5 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2022-10-09

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