Happy Fall!

The first day of fall at Oxtongue Lake - beautiful colours and morning mist.

I was right about the fall colours

As a follow up to the previous post, I waited a few days and checked the satellite image again. Actually, I was forced to wait, since up until Monday we had very little blue sky. Check the image for September 17 - there is a definite, visible red tinge on the west side of Algonquin Park. Who needs to look out a window any more!

If you want a more definitive perspective, check out Ontario's Fall Colours Report.

Track fall colours by satellite

Regular followers of this blog will remember that we recommend the NOAA satellite image for the Great Lakes region for following ice-out progress. It occurred to me that this could be a useful tool for checking on the advance of fall colours in southern Ontario. Since the colours in this image are true, the green forest cover shows up clearly. Check the image for Sept. 3 and you will see that the western area of Algonquin Park is showing a bit of reddish tinge (or is this my imagination?). This corresponds with what we can see on the ground - mostly green but some early flashes of red coming through. Fall is here!

If you haven't looked at these satellite images before, here are a few tips. When the image first opens on your screen, you will find that you are looking at the upper left-hand corner, somewhere near Thunder Bay. Scroll right and down until you can recognize landforms and lakes of the Algonquin Park area. Bigger lakes like Opeongo, Cedar and Burnt Island are easily distinguishable. If you look carefully, you can even make out the thin line of Hwy 60 stretching across the region.