St. Louis is very nearly at its peak for fall colors.
Paul Pastelok, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, told KMOX that the city usually hits its peak in late October.
"Things are running on time this year. The original forecast was for vibrant, but a late start, to the peak season," he said. "But it's actually come on about a week or two earlier than we expected back in the late summer. So things are looking good. The colors are coming out."
Pastelok said the setup for a vibrant season involves a good amount of moisture during the summer, and then a drier fall. And this July's heavy rains certainly delivered.
"You can get more sunlight and also get some of those sugars going in the leaves to get those nice reds and oranges to show up. And that's what we got going on," he said.
Pastelok explained what makes the trees so bright some years.
"You need to get that sugar to build up in the leaf as the chlorophyll is shutting down. There's an abscission layer that forms on the bottom of the leaf. And it cuts off the sugar from going back towards the tree, and so it stays in the leaf," he explained. "And that brings out that red pigment that's hidden behind the chlorophyll, the green through most of the summer season. And it just comes right out bright, very vibrant if you can build up the sugars in the leaf. So vibrant trees, trees that are not stressed out, generally give you some really good coloring depending on the pigments that they do produce during the course of the season."
Accuweather Meteorologist Paul Pastelock also talked about the low level of the Mississippi river, and gave some predictions for winter. Listen to his interview:
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