MARQUETTE COUNTY, Mich. (WZMQ) – With our shorter days and colder nights of the fall season, upper Michigan’s dense forests are headed back to their best colors of the year. As a major seasonal turning point, the signs are hard to miss.
“The color season up here, the fall season, is magical,” said Kelsey Wermager, Director of the Big Bay Stewardship Council.
“Getting out anywhere around the U.P., you’re going to get the colors,” said Jesie Melchiori, a Forsyth Forward board member.
The varieties of reds, oranges, and golds come forth once trees stop producing chlorophyll, typically giving them their green colors. In our fall season, the lessened warmth and sunlight ceases the regular movement of these nutrients, revealing the carotenoid colors of oranges and yellows. These are always found in leaves, but overshadowed by chlorophyll.
Inland areas such as Gwinn are seeing a lot of these colors already, but those along the shoreline in places like Big Bay, could be looking at a few more weeks of waiting, due to lake affect temperature differences.
This year, recent higher temperatures have delayed this process around Marquette county, pushing back the anticipated peak viewing times.
“I thought that we were going to get our fall pretty early,” said Melchiori. “We had that cooldown and saw some of the colors start to pop, but now that it’s warmed up, I think the colors are going to go into October before they are in full swing.”
Marquette County peak fall colors are expected to be seen around the second week of October, from the 6th through the 10th.
