Crisp autumn air has (briefly) made its presence felt over the past couple of days, and that has a lot of leaf tourists on alert for the weekend. While there's always great color to be found across New England this time of year, drought conditions are making the game a little trickier this time around.

The number one story out of this season is drought. Extreme drought conditions across central and northern New England are compressing the season. That means that leaves are changing earlier than average and falling quickly once they change. And in some cases, just dropping before they change at all.

Where to look this weekend

Last weekend featured a pop of excellent color around and above Crawford/Pinkham Notch in New Hampshire and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, but those areas are quickly moving past peak now as leaves drop. This weekend it would be better to focus on the south side of those notches.

We can say that the leaf peeping experience this weekend into early next week will be extremely mixed and not uniform. Swaths of forest are still green in lower elevations of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine while others are a mix of color and bare trees. Birch and beech trees in particular are struggling with the dry conditions and beech leaf disease, putting a dent in their yellow canopies.

The past few chilly nights are great for getting leaves to turn, but the heat Saturday through early next week is going to bake a lot of leaves already stressed from the drought. Follow that up with a blustery front and some rain coming through on Wednesday, and the result is more leaf drop on a quicker-than-usual schedule.

Long story short – go out early and often this year! By Columbus Day Weekend, a good portion of the leaves that aren't oaks across northern New England will likely already be down and focus will turn more toward southern New England.