Cold weather prompts unseasonal color change

EVANSVILLE -- This summer's unseasonably cool weather has apparently tricked some of Indiana's trees to change into their fall finery weeks early.\nTree enthusiasts say some trees and shrubs are changing colors far earlier than normal in southwestern Indiana -- particularly maples, burning bushes and sumacs that are now splashed with dark reds.\nRosie Lerner, an extension consumer horticulture specialist at Purdue University, said the cool summer has almost certainly affected leaves' color-changing processes.\nShe said an unseasonably cool summer, unusually heavy rains and recent fall-like weather, has been "almost perfect" for leaf changes.\n"We've been seeing brilliant blue skies, with high temperatures getting into the 80s during the day, then low temperatures getting into the 40s and 50s at night," Lerner told the Evansville Courier & Press for a story Monday. "With all that, we're starting to see some things change ahead of time."\nLerner said she saw Virginia creeper, a climbing plant related to Boston ivy, turning a brilliant bright red the third weekend in August. Some white pine tree needles are also falling off early, Lerner said.\nTypically, peak fall foliage color time in southern Indiana comes in late October.\nThe National Weather Service said that August was the fourth-coolest on record, while July was the seventh-coolest on record.\n"I think that sort of freaked out the trees," said Wayne Hart, chief meteorologist at WEHT in Evansville.\nSome people are watching the leaves' progress with great interest -- among them the convention and visitors board in Brown County, which sees about 3.5 million visitors a year, many of them in late September and October.\n"We're careful about not trying to predict it," said Kate Mejaski, a spokeswoman for the Brown County visitors bureau. "We always say it's going to be beautiful all fall"