When to see the best fall colors in the Chicago area

And you're looking at our beautiful city along the lakefront there from the 2800 camera. Just a little bit of color popping up downtown, but autumn is officially in full swing. And the big question now is, when are we going to see the absolute best fall colors this year? Joining us to discuss the changing palette is Dr. Christy Rollinson. She is the senior scientist in forest ecology at Morton Arboretum. Dr. Rollinson, I remember last year I was out there standing with you and we were going over the changing colors. You put away the umbrella, so the rain is going away right now, right? We're hoping so. We're hoping it's on its way out. All right, well, let's talk a little bit about the colors out there. Our drone team has been up and flying this morning. We saw some beautiful reds, which I assume are some of the maples getting going early. Are we seeing the same kind of similar timing of peak foliage or are we delayed because of how warm it's been recently yeah right now it is very idiosyncratic each tree is kind of doing its own thing on the whole we're definitely tracking a bit late and a lot of that is due to that El Niño and the warm weather we've had all right the key to changing leaves as as I recall from the education that you've given me in the past it's really it's tied to the dropping of temperatures the shortening of daylight hours to really bring out the most vibrant colors. What would ideal conditions be, Christy? Ideal conditions for vibrant colors are really sunny days because that really promotes a lot of the reds and actually some of the yellows too. And then those cold temperatures that tell trees ahead of time, hey, winter's coming, it might be 80 degrees today, but it's going to happen. So really we want bright days, cold nights, and then a little bit of moisture help the trees kind of ease into the winter we're showing one of our drone shots and I you know I was not sure what that bright yellow tree was but you told me what that one is it's not a ginkgo tell us what it is no that's a cork tree so it's another species from Asia and uh for people that have been to the arboretum it's that crazy gnarled tree over by the Firefly Pavilion it is such a fun place right now and it's really eye-catching. It's gorgeous and it stands out there. What would you say would be kind of the south to north progression of leaf changing in the Chicago area? Obviously one would assume that you know the northern suburbs are going to be peaking sooner than Joliet and LaSalle County. Is that pretty much maybe like a one to two week difference? Probably not that big a difference between you know Lake County and Joliet. Maybe a couple days. what we see a lot of is actually going from the suburbs into the city because the city's a bit warmer, things change a little bit later there. And then in our area, a lot of that variation is going to be based off of what trees have been planted in your neighborhoods and your cities. So we're already seeing things like honey locusts are in bright color here out in the suburbs, whereas some of the maples or particularly any place with a lot of oaks is going to change a little later. You bring up the honey locust. Could I please have more of those leaves on the ground underneath the honey locusts in my yard. All right, I want to throw one of my favorite words out there for you, anthocyanin. Yes, yes, anthocyanin. It's the same thing that makes tomatoes red. It's the same thing that makes our leaves red. And what's really fun is that for things like maples that produce those red colors, most of the colors are in the leaves all year. The red is not. And so there's some species and some kinds of trees that create that red pigment anthocyanin in the fall and it's really promoted by daylight because it's a sunscreen that helps uh block the the uv rays that can damage the internal machinery of the leaf as it's going through this senescence process that color change process all right obviously we would love for p oh gosh what is i i don't know if you have a monitor out there but we're looking at a spectacular shot i'm i'm thinking that these are There's some Acer rubrums that are going crazy out there, the red maples. At the Morton Arboretum, I'm sure you want folks to come out there and visit you. What are some of your favorite trees that are changing color now? And you know, obviously we're all familiar with maples, but maybe something off the beaten path. Yeah, so the cork tree really kind of caught my eye this year more so than other years. If you head up the hill from Meadow Lake where we are now, There's actually a wide variety of different kinds of maples, not just the sugar maple, not just the red maple. There's some really fun, actually, maple species of conservation concern that we have planted that are creating some really fun oranges. And then I look out for the oaks later in the year because they can range in color from like brown to this deep burgundy color. So those are what I'm waiting for in a couple weeks. Christy, I am a huge fan of the autumn purple ash because of the variety of colors that you can get on one tree. Have you got any of those that are changing now on the property there? We do. Unfortunately, some of our ashes, we don't have as many as we used to, but we do have some scattered throughout. That darn borer, that emerald ash borer, right? Yeah. Yeah. The one that's really fun that might be off the beaten path in terms of what people are thinking of for color is elms. We've got a great Elm collection, also very close to the core area. And those colors can range from bright yellow to bright red. If you were to rate your expectation on a scale from 1 to 10 of this season's overall color, with 10 being, this is even better than Vermont, where are you putting your expectation this year for Chicago's fall palette? So I always think we're better than Vermont, personally. Really trying not to have expectations this year because the weather has been so weird. But because we're delayed, there is going to be this potential for everything to change at once and to have a lot of intense color. But we'll see. Right now, it's a different kind of color than I think we normally get. But you're seeing these bright pops of yellow and red against the green. And I think that's stunning. But for everything to change at once, there's potential for everything to change. I think a lot of it is going to rely on when we start getting those temperatures down to about freezing. All right. Well, Dr. Christy Rawlinson, we thank you for joining us and just a lovely spot there at the Morton Arboretum. I'm sorry about your Nittany Lions this year. They're not getting it done there. She's a Penn State grad. It's okay. We really thank you for being out there, especially a little bit of light rain. Look forward to seeing you maybe in person when I come out there soon. All right. We're going to take a quick break here as you look at some of the amazing color right now at the Morton Arboretum, maybe even picking up a peak of sun there. We'll be right back after this.