WLBT.com - Jackson, MSWalt's Look Around: Fall in the Air

You drive anywhere and you see it. Trees all painted up for the season. On the interstate, in neighborhoods, the visual cue that the year is marching on is in its full glory right now. Seeing the city all dressed up like this puts me in a holiday mood almost. Because this is what Thanksgiving looks like here in the south. This is when our autumn leaves hit their peak of color. Some years better than others. And this year seems to be a particularly good year for such things.

At the State Capitol building, the turning crepe myrtles add a new dimension to the term, "branches of government." On the day I was downtown, the ginkgos on the Capitol grounds had just started changing. While the ones in the side lawn at the Governor's Mansion were already in their full yellow for the season. I think the ginkgos are one of the prettiest autumn trees we have. But they are quick. In just a few days all this yellow will be on the ground and the branches will be bare.

The architectural angles of the downtown buildings gives a particularly interesting framing to the natural randomness of the turning autumn trees.

And the spectacular fall we're having doesn't even stop at sundown right now. Here in Mississippi when the high temperature on the calendar's first day of fall are often still into the 90's, my mental beginning of the season is the first night when you can see your breath outside. And we've obviously had that night. And the evening sky offers not only the spectacular full moon of the past few evenings, but the bright planet Jupiter. And if you have a pretty good pair of binoculars or a telescope, you'll not only see the planet, but some of it's moons, which are ALWAYS full when seen from your back yard here on earth.

But nighttime frosts will soon loosen the leaves and the coming winter rains will knock most of them off the trees by Christmas. So it's a passing parade, but it's in mid show right now. In the city as well as in the country.