Fall colors are starting to hit their stride in the Raccoon Valley Radio area.

Jefferson Trees Forever Coordinator Brad Riphagen says despite the fact that due to another year of drought and some definite warm ups and cool downs has led to not as brilliantly colored leaves this year, but there’s still lots that people can take in.

“So maples, they’re coming in right now, and so they’re going to be the yellows, and then the red maple will have a real bright red color, some of the oaks are not as spectacular, so they will become more of a bronze (and) some of those kind of things like with the burr oaks. But if you have a white oak, depending on the year, can be a spectacular crimson color. But again it’s progression from some of the yellows that we’re getting right now into, we’ll have some reds showing up, and then going back to some bronze and golds.”    

Riphagen talks about the transformation that trees undergo this time of year.

“When the days start getting shorter and the temperatures start dropping, they start forming a wall between the branch and the actual leaf itself, cutting off the flow sap into the leaf itself. And so that causes the leaf to die. The chlorophyll no longer can be produced and so the green part (on the leaf) disappears, (and) the colors that you see were there all the time but they’re left for us to see.”  

According to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, the peak fall colors for Greene, Dallas and Guthrie Counties are now through the end of the month.