Dustin, not a silly question at all. I wasn't sure so I did some looking up of leaf color changes and leaf fall to see what affects it most. Its a combination of things that starts the leaf color changes and the leaves ultimately dropping off the trees. The three major factors are hours of daylight and intensity (lowering) of the sunlight, cooling (but not much freezing) temperatures and the amount of moisture/rainfall.
See, when the leaves start to change colors, they also start to build a barrier between the base of the stem of the leaf and the twig it is attached to. This barrier seals over the place where the leaf was attached so that when it separates and drops off, there won't be an open "wound" where the tree could lose sap and moisture, or be invaded by disease.
This barrier is formed while the leaves are undergoing the changes in fall, including the change in color. The changes are set going by receptors in the tree, vine or plant that sense the changes in the temperature, amount and intensity of sunlight, and are also affected by the amount of moisture available to the plant to some degree. If it freezes hard very early, there may not be a color change, as the leaves will dry and drop off. So the leaf color change isn't brought about by sudden frost and freezing, but by the gradual cooling.
I found one site that gave citations to a 1996 study in Asia that showed that the leaves of ginko and acer palmatum (a kind of maple tree) would be delayed from changing color between 2 to 7 days for each 1 degree increase in mean temperature.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/regional/267.htm
(see the last paragraph of the report for the comment on delay in the leaf color change)
Most of the sites I saw said that usually, this would mean a shorter period of fall "color" as the leaves that have changed will drop when the light fades enough and the temperature is cold enough, and most will drop after a hard frost. But I expect that if the hard frost was delayed as well, that the leaves might stay on the trees a bit longer. Even if there isn't a hard frost, they will eventually drop when they are done changing and the barrier film has grown between the base of the leaf's stem and the twig.
I think that the moisture factor has a lot to do with the internal chemistry of the plant/tree and how efficiently the biochemicals that make the color changes are transported around the tree to the leaves.
Most of the articles I saw noted that the temperature dropping effect on the changing leaves can be seen by observing the trees as they change in mountain ranges. The higher elevations will usually change first, and drop the leaves first, and the changes proceed down the mountainsides. So the temperature does play a role, because if it was just the fading light, the trees in the bases of the mountains would likely get less light than those nearer the top, and would change first. So both play a role in it.
I guess the answer to your question would be......maybe. It would depend on the moisture and the amount of sunlight, too, but the temperature and how fast it drops in fall also plays a role.
Linear Mode
