File:Fall Colors in Quebec, New York, and New England (MODIS).jpg

English: With daylight hours shortening and temperatures cooling, the annual flush of autumn color was painting the deciduous forests of Canada and the Northeastern United States with a glorious glow in early October 2023. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of the changing fall colors on October 4.

Bright orange and red fill the forests of Quebec province, Canada as well as the Adirondacks in New York state, the Green Mountains of Vermont, and the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Yellow and paler orange predominates near the St. Lawrence River both in the United States (south and east) and Canada (north). Yellows are also obvious north of Lake Ontario and near the Finger Lakes of New York.

The variation of color comes from different species of trees that grow most densely in the forests, as well as the stage of leaf coloration. The leaves contain chlorophyll, which is a green pigment that gives the summertime leaves their color. As daylight shortens, chlorophyll fades, allowing other colors within the leaf to become visible. These pigments are carotenoids, which look yellow, orange, or brown, and anthocyanin, which looks red.

Hickory, ash, beech, and birch are all trees that typically have yellow leaves in the fall, while persimmon, some oaks, and black tupelo typically produce red leaves. Maples may glow with yellow, orange, or red. The sugar maple, whose sap is harvested in the spring to make a sweet syrup or candy, has exceptionally bright foliage. Sugar maples are abundant in the forests of both Quebec and New England.