MOOSIC, Pa. — Leaves changing color is a tell-tale sign of fall, and some of you are already seeing yellow leaves littering your backyards.
Could this mean we are in the midst of an early fall?
Autumn is especially beautiful here in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, with our mountains set ablaze by the riot of color on our deciduous trees.
But a viewer, Chris, from Moosic, emailed us at WNEP with photos of her front yard, wondering why so many of her leaves were turning yellow before we even turned the calendar page to September.
Turns out, the yellow leaves on her lawn aren't necessarily a sign of an early fall. Although we did have some chilly nights in mid-August, yellow leaves in the summer are often a result of insect infestations, prolonged heat waves, a lack of nutrients in the soil, disease, or a combination of all of these.
When leaves turn yellow, this is a condition called chlorosis, which is an abnormal yellowing of the leaf tissue due to the loss of chlorophyll. Chlorophyll, of course, is the pigment inside plant cells responsible for their green color, and the chloroplast is the part of the cell where the process of photosynthesis takes place.
Chlorosis of leaves in summer can also be the result of water stress. When plants and trees get too little or too much water, they tend to drop their leaves to either conserve or expel that moisture.
And we had quite a lot of rainfall this August. As a matter of fact, with the flooding rains we saw from the remnants of Tropical Storm Debby, we ended August with a surplus of over 3 inches of rain for the month.
It's likely that this over-watering was the culprit for many of the trees in our area yellowing this month, rather than a sign of an early fall.
As we march closer to the autumnal equinox, which falls on September 22nd this year, the leaves will continue to change, also unveiling the reds and oranges that often accompany the change in season.
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