Early Autumn

[The PIT]

What I suspect is more to do with the continuing dry weather autumn has already started here. Trees are turning yellow as are the larger bushes such as hawthorn. Is the same happening where you are?

[sundog]

A few of the small trees (like the ones that are on the grass verges of housing estates) have turned yellow,but everything else is still green. Blackberries on my blackberry bush in my back garden are all red,wont be too long until they turn black.

[Slowpoke]

I expect another scorching September to be honest. April and September are our summer months nowadays.

[Guest]

I expect another scorching September to be honest. April and September are our summer months nowadays.

I wouldn't say scorching but probably warm and settled - we appear to be getting to be getting 5 seasons from March to October these days - spring, warm early summer, cooler wetter high summer, indian summer, then autumn.

[summer blizzard]

I live close to Leeds and i agree with your assesment. I have noticed walking around that many of the berry trees/bushes are fairly ripe and the non-berry trees have leaves which are now changing to autuminal coulors.

[BARRY]

have to agree,the local woodland round here looks more like October than august.and fruit trees are ready to pick now which for some is 5 weeks Early.

[SP1986]

I suspect its to do with the early fruiting, however last year we had a second wave of flowering on care branches, with developing second wave of fruits, until the winter cold destroyed it.

[Backtrack]

Today has felt very autumnal. It's been lovely today, a fresh wind and only about 17C. September is likely to be warm or very warm, as I stated in the CET thread.

[picog]

Trees are definitely looking as though they are moving to autumnal stage, especially horse chestnuts. All trees except ash came into full leaf very early this year, so maybe they have a set number of days, then they move into falling off mode.

The ash have really struggled round here; some are OK, but some still have relatively few leaves and some bare branches. I can barely believe that a native species like ash would have been so badly affected by the intense cold in December 2010, but maybe they were. Does anyone else have this?

[DeepSnow]

Some of the trees round here look more like it should be late August/Start of September! I have notices some have started to change to a more orangy/brown colour! The rest look like that dark green when they are about to soon turn! Looks like it could be an early Autumn here as we have had a fair amount of rain over the last month or so, so doubt it's because of lack of rain!

[evil monkey]

...All trees except ash came into full leaf very early this year...

...The ash have really struggled round here; some are OK, but some still have relatively few leaves and some bare branches. I can barely believe that a native species like ash would have been so badly affected by the intense cold in December 2010, but maybe they were. Does anyone else have this?

I suspect that the Ash having a late start & some struggling may have more to do with the very dry spring as Ash

have a very shallow root system & are hence very sensitive to soil moisture levels.

The Ash around these parts were a good 2 weeks behind all the other deciduous trees but most have now

recovered quite well.

[jethro]

It's daylight hours which govern the leaf response of trees in the Autumn, any leaf change prior to this is a reaction to moisture levels.

[ZONE 51]

And i thought it was only hitting my town! yes brown and orangy leaves on many species already, the conker trees are really like at the end, we have full autumn conker trees, these have big conkers that will soon split and drop-in august! all this happening in the last few weeks.

last year drought was the reason for many species of tree to go brown and dry leaves that are still green now, so something about those conker trees i heard its something wrong with the tree? spreading through the land. but then the chesnuts are large and look like il be baking them early this year! i dont do that really but you see my point they are early to. so what could be going on? maybe early autumn? it does not mean that we wont have summer high and that with hot september but we could be looking at autumn scenes much earlyier, although this does not mean winter is round the corner-you need to check out the squirrals for that!!

[Alan Robinson]

Over on this side of the North Sea there is no sign of autumn at all. What we have is a wetter than normal summer, a few degrees over the 1961 - 90 norm. The cereal harvest got underway pretty much as normal, though I notice there are still fields of standing oil seed rape.

Interestingly, we do have many roadside trees that suffered terribly at the amount of rock salt spread about the roads last winter. Unlike the Danes I cannot recall the numbers - Danes love to quote statistics - but it was reported this spring that a great many trees might very well die, such was the level of roadside salt pollution.

[Northernlights]

Also saw leaf colour change here at the end of July here on the usual trees that have always turned colour first in previous years.Early very warm dry start to spring maybe the reason.

[mushymanrob]

It's daylight hours which govern the leaf response of trees in the Autumn, any leaf change prior to this is a reaction to moisture levels.

absolutely....

its been very dry around here, missing the main wet spells recently, so many of our trees/bushes are looking autumnal...however... IF we get alot of heavy rain soon, there might be a secondary growth period albeit a minor one.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

Autumn think has arrived now, leaves are falling off, got a northerly toppler setup now, then lows from the west later in week, a bit like spring arriving in Feb, often does for southern UK

[A Winter's Tale]

Yes Autumn has certainly arrived here with leaves changing colour and a quite a few are on the ground. I'd like to add that the light, air temperature and freshness also feel positively autumnal. At the moment I can only see a few periods of decent weather left this month though the North should continue to be in autumn. However, you can't rule out some decent weather in September.

[P-M]

Yes same here, leaves are turning, noticed that on the way to graft today. Not sure why like but interesting all the same!

[Methuselah]

Nothing untoward going-on in this part of the world...

[jethro]

Nothing untoward going-on in this part of the world...

Nor here.

[carinthian]

Over on this side of the North Sea there is no sign of autumn at all. What we have is a wetter than normal summer, a few degrees over the 1961 - 90 norm. The cereal harvest got underway pretty much as normal, though I notice there are still fields of standing oil seed rape.

Interestingly, we do have many roadside trees that suffered terribly at the amount of rock salt spread about the roads last winter. Unlike the Danes I cannot recall the numbers - Danes love to quote statistics - but it was reported this spring that a great many trees might very well die, such was the level of roadside salt pollution.

Really one of my pet hates the amount of rock salt used on UK roads as well. The damage and after mess is all there to see. In Austria, rock salt is used mainly on the main Auto -routes where there is little tree planting to be affected by the salt spray. Most small towns and villages use quarry chippings for grip and results in no slush. The chippings are simply swept up ater the thaw and re-cycled for the next snowfall. Nothing worst than slush !

C

[Gray-Wolf]

If the Arctic Amplification continues to treat us to early winter Arctic Air then I see the return to snow chains/winter tyres for many of the drivers in the UK who had never driven in snow before. Main routes are the only ones gritted in these parts so just to get to a main road is snow fun!

As for early Autumn? Haven't seen a decent 'Cane yet so that's not happening.

[Geordiesnow]

Why do people always menturn about early signs of Autumn at this time of year. Most of the time, the reason why we see leaves dropping off is mostly leaves that don't get much chlorophyll and the majority are green. Also wind and rain tend to help strip some leaves off even when they are green.

Once late Septemeber arrives, thats when we should see the real colour change occuring.

[Argyllcraig]

Things are pretty normal for the time of year here in Glasgow and the surrounding area.. average mild summer however there was a major storm in late may which must have left a lot of the woodland shocked if thats possible as a lot of trees saw their foliage turn yellow and brown within a week of that event and this colour has continued through the summer.

Should start to see the natural change in the next week or two here as summer usually drifts to autumn in mid august here.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Argyllcraig