Boo!
It might not feel like it outside, but today is October 1. Today's weather is mostly cloudy with some scattered showers moving northeast throughout the state. Highs in the 60s and 70s.
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Fall colors along the Honeymoon Trail north of Tofte, Minn. | Andrew Krueger, MPR News |
By Carly Quast
The experts at the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources have been finding and recording the best leaf-peeping spots for years. A summer of drought and above average heat has made that work tricky.
Val Cervenka, the state DNR’s forest health program consultant for the forestry division — and the unofficial fall-color forecaster — explained that moisture, weather and daylight play large roles in the process of leaves changing color. After a summer of high heat and drought across the state, she originally predicted this year's fall colors to be anything but vibrant.
“By about May, we stopped getting adequate rainfall in the north. And, you know, by last month we were in that excessive brown area in the Midwest,” she said. “When the trees don’t have moisture, they dry up. And they actually might not turn any color, they might just dry up as they are.”
Or, they change color early. Cervenka explained that a chemical called chlorophyll, which is formed through photosynthesis and is the reason why leaves are green, is no longer produced when a tree doesn’t get enough water.
When the chlorophyll disappears from a tree's leaves, it allows for other color pigments, such as red and yellow, to show. So that’s why you may have seen the leaves in your neighborhood turn color as early as August.
Since Cervenka's predictions are largely based on overall moisture levels across the state, it’s no surprise that she was expecting this year’s fall colors to be less than impressive. But after a recent trip up to Superior National Forest, her predictions have taken a wide turn. She explained that the colors of the leaves were amazing — even in a part of the state that had experienced this summer’s drought the longest.
“The color change will happen no matter what, but the drought will influence the intensity of the color change … We are still having fall colors, people,” she said.
Although individual trees change color for only a few weeks, the leaf-peeping season lasts until mid to late October. It all comes down to knowing where to go and when. At the end of this article are our five best tips.
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By Jon Collins
Even as more people avoided hospital emergency rooms last year to dodge COVID-19 exposure, the number of Minnesotans treated for non-fatal drug overdoses jumped 18 percent from 2019.
More than half of non-fatal overdoses treated at hospitals were caused by opioids, including a big increase in synthetic opioids like fentanyl. But about 43 percent of the patients overdosed on other drugs, including benzodiazepines, antipsychotics and antidepressants.
The analysis by the agency shows that people treated at the ER for non-fatal overdoses are more likely to be younger, male and American Indian or Black. The already stark disparities by race for non-fatal overdoses increased drastically between 2016 and 2020, according to the report.
"It can be really, really easy to focus on drug overdose deaths as being the only impact of the drug overdose crisis on communities,” said Sam Robertson, a community overdose prevention specialist with the department. “This is just a healthy reminder that drug overdose deaths are just the tip of the iceberg."
Street-level advocates are seeing the same challenges for people who use drugs during the pandemic. Marissa Bonnie works with Southside Harm Reduction Services, which provides outreach, clean needles and the anti-overdose medication naloxone in the Twin Cities. She doesn’t see enough resources for people living outside or specifically targeted at people of color or Indigenous people who use drugs.
“Listen to people using drugs,” Bonnie said. “Stigma hits people so hard and puts people in even harder places to seek care.”
It’s hard to tell how much of an impact overdose prevention efforts have had in Minnesota, but Robertson with the health department says that recovery and harm reduction resources like the anti-overdose medication naloxone are still widely available despite the pandemic.
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Scoping out clean cars: A coalition of groups that support expanded electric vehicle use is making a sales pitch to northern Minnesota residents this week with public events in Bemidji, Roseau and Duluth. More than 150 people turned out for an event in Roseau, expressing curiosity (and some skepticism.)
Skirting around for boosters: The FDA has approved COVID booster shots for a limited number of people who first got the Pfizer vaccine. But in the weeks before those shots became available, some people were already getting them. Health officials warn against veering outside federal booster shot guidelines.
Guilty plead: Boogaloo Bois member Ivan Harrison Hunter, 24, of Boerne, Texas, admitted he traveled to Minneapolis to sow chaos after the police murder of George Floyd. Hunter admitted that he fired 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into the 3rd precinct police station on May 28, 2020.
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