By Will Bain

ALL the leaves are brown, and while the skies are not yet exclusively grey, autumn does seem to have come to Worcestershire early.

As our pictures show, trees across the county have responded by shedding both their leaves and fruits earlier than usual.

Experts are agreed it is all to do with below average rainfall this summer, coming off the back of an unprecedentedly warm spring.

In fact, according to the Met Office, the period between March and May this year was the warmest since records began back in 1910, as well as being the driest since 1990.

Your Worcester News weatherman Paul Damari said: “Because of the warm spring, pollinators such as bees have been able to get their work done earlier and thanks to the relative lack of rain, they were able to pollinate consistently.

“Warm weather, with bursts of rain, has provided pretty much ideal conditions for things such as plum and apple trees and so the whole flowering process has occurred a few weeks earlier.”

Helen Woodman, a reserve team leader for Worcestershire Wildlife Trust, said: “The dry summer has played a big part.

“Even though trees have deep roots, if there is not much water down there for them, their leaves will dry out. Even after the rain we have had, the soil has still been pretty dry.

“The cold winter also gave the trees a good dormancy and that combined with the warm spring has meant the trees have sprung into life earlier.

“Normally we would go out to manage the trees around mid-September so as not to damage them but this year that process has come forward and we will probably be able to start work a couple of weeks earlier.”

While cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow have been drenched under 50 per cent more rainfall than average this summer, Worcestershire has seen rainfall for the months of June, July and August fall well below the average for the time of year.

While temperatures have been reflective of those in previous summers, average rainfall was down about 25 per cent for June and July.

And with just 38mm falling as of August 29, rainfall for the month was just 65 per cent of the normal average.