Fleeting Fall

 Fall, or Autumn is a time of year when, along with the temperatures, annoying bothersome bug populations tend to decline, along with other seasonal events.  The change to the landscape is most marked by the changing color of deciduous trees and shrubs.  The colors provide a painters palate marked against a baby blue sky, that would make the iconic Bob Ross happy, or at least his trees.  On second thought, given how many cloudy days have been around, the tree back drop should be a grey.  For some reason, I felt that fall was fleeting this year. 

Autumn Purple Ash at Full Color

If it was not the relatively cold temperatures, it was the heavy wind, which removed the leaves more quickly than what one could expect.  I recall looking at the Autumn Purple Ash tree in my front yard and marveling at its golds, yellows on the bottom side of the leaf, and the purple or bronze on the top side of the leaf.  The leaves were gently starting to fall the following day.  However, the following Sunday night to Monday it was windy and rainy and I looked out that Monday morning to see the tree now a skeleton of branches with its leaves gone, but for a few stragglers near the top.  The leaves were scattered over my yard, the street and neighboring lawns.  It was a wake up call to how fleeting and fickle fall actually is.  

September 202 Temperatures Compared to Normal High and Lows
Source:  Accuweather 

I think back to much of the month of October, and of how it seemed quite cool, if not cold.  There was one week of warm weather, but for much of that week there were wind gusts of 20+ miles per hour. Leaves could be seen moving horizontally across your view-shed. Beyond that one week, temperatures seemed to be below normal, and in some cases, well below normal.  To find out if my supposition was correct, I looked up Madison high and low temperatures compared to normal high and lows for September and up to Oct 28. Perhaps it is the cold days that I recall, but September had over half its days where the high temperature was below normal.  In fact, it had three consecutive days where the high temperature was at or below the normal low for the day. 

October (through Oct 27) Temperatures
Compared to Normal High and Low
Source: Accuweather

What made me think about this topic, was looking at the daily paper and noticing that the high temperature for Oct 25 and 26 was had a high at or below the normal low temperature.  I cannot recall, but in either September or October Madison had set a new record for it lowest high temperature.  Given how low the high temperature was on Oct 19, maybe it was that day.  Between recorded and predicted temperatures for Oct 28-30 we will have had 11 days with the high temperature being above the normal high; that means that 20 of the 31 days of the month will have had a high temperature below the normal high. The temperatures are only one part of the equation.  For example, the week of October 19 it was not only cold, but mostly if not all cloudy and with a good deal of rain.  I think we had 3" of rain in one 24 hour period, and that was probably Wednesday to  Thursday when it rained most all day.  I can attest to that, because I got my walk, during a light rain/drizzle but came back both days chilled and wet. Funny, how the radar indicated it was not raining. I realized I may need a new raincoat. My ever thoughtful wife made me some tea. 

Autumn Purple Ash at full color

Yet, I do not despair, because it is days like Oct 28, sunny and moderate wind that is a great day to be outdoors.  Take advantage of good weather when you can. It was a good day to hike.  The wife and I went to Donald County Park.  This almost 800 acre park is near Mount Vernon, and walked a few of its trails.  Most of our route took us along the wood edge or through prairie, likely former tilled land, with great views from certain high ridges.  Our last hiking day was on Tuesday, Oct 13 at Wyalusing State Park. The later part of that second week of October or early the third full week was, or may have been peak color, but the winds and rain of the following week did a number on the colors of many trees. This is why I saw it as a fleeting fall.   The lack of color was certainly noticed on the drive to and at Donald Park, with a few yellows, but mostly the dark crimson of the oaks that tended to stick to the branches.    

Maple tree in backyard at its most vibrant

Some trees do not well hold their color. My hickory trees are yellow for a day or so, and then turn brown.  Some leaves are falling, but other hickory leaves will fall into December and perhaps beyond. It is not unusual for snow to be covered with brown leaves. 

Donald Park

The fleeting, fickle nature of fall is epitomized by the change of color, the loss of leaves, the changing temperatures and reduced day light hours.  The dark mornings, and the onset of early evening darkness portend the coming of winter and the change of season. Now, dear readers, here is a piece of particularly useful information: there is more daylight (10 hours 27 minutes) on February 13, than there is on Oct. 28 (10 hours, 26 minutes, 16 seconds).  At this time of year we lose over 2 and 1/2 minutes of daylight a day, so that in just three days, October 31, All-Hallows Eve, daylight hours for Madison are at 10 hours 18 minutes 26 seconds.  Although, this drop in daylight is better than most of September into early October when we lost almost three minutes a day of daylight (about 2:54).  The fleeting day light will be temporary, of course, as on Dec 21 it will slowly start to increase until February when we pick up daylight time, as quickly as it was lost in late summer and early fall (by calendar seasons).  

Donald Co Park

The moral of the story is do not take fall for granted, because with Wisconsin weather you can turn around and the weather may have completely changed--not to mention all the leaves having fallen off a tree. Take advantage of a nice weather day when it is available, because it is fleeting.

With move to Standard Time in the early hours of Nov 1, sunset that day will be at 4:48 pm, but look at the bright side, the sun will rise at 6:32 am.