MONROE COUNTY, Pa. — As the warmer weather moves out and the cooler weather moves in, people in the Poconos are seeing red, yellow, and orange.
High atop Big Pocono State Park near Tannersville, it may not look like fall yet, but it sure feels like it. Those visiting and taking in the view say the cooler weather is on their minds.
"I love the season. Yeah, I love the change in the wildlife, just seeing the change in colors. You can't really see it right now, but yeah, we're just here for the weather," said Susan Ilmer, a New Jersey resident.
Fall is one of the busiest seasons for the Pocono Mountains, mostly because of the leaves.
"The fall foliage forecast is one of the most viewed pages on the poconomountains.com website, and it's amazing as soon as the weather starts to turn a little bit, you can just see that people are jumping on that page and kind of looking at it to see what it's going to look like," said Chris Barrett, head of the Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau.
Ryan Reed is a program specialist with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Nature Resources. He believes this fall foliage season will be a good one, despite the lack of rain in the spring.
"We got ample rainfall, lots of storm events fairly well spaced out, and so that was made up for. And our trees were adequately watered, the leaves that we expect to see in a beautiful canopy," Reed said.
Reed says the northern tier will be the first in our area to see full color. Overall, he's expecting a normal fall foliage season compared to what we saw last year.
"What that usually means is about a good solid month of beautiful fall foliage viewing. Of course, it varies in intensity. So, it starts off not too intense, in the early going, and you have some early species showing color, and then you get a period of overlap of species that is particularly vibrant."
The leaves should start to turn by the end of the month.