Leaves, not enough rain, continue falling in the Philly region. Will that dim the fall foliage show?

Wanting for actual rainfall, for weeks the trees have been raining brown, brittle leaves in the Philly region and elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, and already that is raising concerns about the annual fall foliage show.

Monday’s hit-and-miss rains “may slow the rate of leaf drop this week,” said Ryan Reed, program specialist with the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, but he expects the rain of leaves to continue through the late summer.

But not to worry about the autumnal reds and yellows and russets, at least for now, say Reed and Jim Salge, a meteorologist and foliage specialist. Rather than lowering the dimmer switch, the summer dryness might even brighten the show in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and most of New England.

Providing it isn’t extreme, “drought isn’t a bad thing” for the foliage show, Salge said last week. Although New Jersey has declared a statewide “drought watch,” so far the dryness is well short of a crisis in the East, save for areas in southeastern Massachusetts.

» READ MORE: New Jersey declares ‘drought watch’, asking residents and businesses to conserve water

“I’m not really worried about the Mid-Atlantic at all,” said Salge, foliage forecaster for Yankee Magazine, based in New Hampshire, and whose outlook was posted last week on NewEngland.com.

Summer rainfall is notoriously capricious, and it has been chary in much of the region during the last two months. Through Sunday, in the previous 60 days rainfall was less than 40% of normal in Philly; 51% in Burlington County, and 60% in Camden County, according to the Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center, which uses a sampling of measuring stations countywide.

Coupled with that run of July-into-August heat — last month was the second-warmest July on record in Philly — trees have been under duress. Shedding leaves “is just a water-conservation measure,” saidReed, and is a common strategy.

» READ MORE: Another heat wave gets underway in Philly, and trees are losing their leaves too soon

The conditions have been especially stressful for trees in urbanized environments, said Salge, who knows something about harsh conditions, having been a meteorologist at the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire, reputed “home of the world’s worst weather.”

(It’s probably worse at the summit of Everest, but no one is up there keeping score.)

Trees in the woodlands would be more drought-resistant, he said.

In the woods, “there’s an ecosystem,” he said, as opposed to buildings and paved surfaces that retain heat and are reluctant to give it up at night.

“You aren’t able to recharge an urban environment. You got the heat island, you got warmer night temperatures, you got so much evaporation, and so much less recharge.”

He said that people should not mistake what they see in and around cities for conditions in the mountains, likening to how lack of snow in the cities in winter can lead people to assume the mountains are snowless.

Reed said that dryness is leaf-destroying fungi’s worst enemy and thus a boon to leaf survival. It hasn’t been a fun summer to be a woodland fungus in the Northeast.

“I enjoy foraging for mushrooms as much as the next guy,” said Salge, “but nothing up here.”

Salge said that, in some areas, lack of rain can lead to an earlier foliage show and perhaps a shorter one, but also can result in “a bright, big pop” of color.

He noted that preseason conditions were quite similar to this year’s in 2016, “and we had an awesome pop of color in Northern New England.”

He said the one area that’s in trouble is eastern Massachusetts around the Boston area, which the U.S. Drought Monitor says is in “extreme drought.” The hills “are browning,” he said. “They’re not going to recover from that.” But the rest of New England should be plenty colorful.

As for areas farther south, “A strong foliage season is anticipated, especially in the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the highlands of Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.”

You say you haven’t yet stored the beach chairs?

The autumnal equinox is still a month away, but trees already are turning in the Adirondacks and Vermont, Salge said.

In northern New Hampshire, “They are starting to change,” said Kathy Cote, owner of the immensely popular Polly’s Pancakes, in Sugar Hill, N.H., where owner have assiduously tracked fall color onsets and peaks for over 40 years. This is serious business for towns In the New England woods, where the foliage season is akin to July at the Jersey Shore.

Some flecks of fall are evident in some trees even around the Philly region.

As for the leaf-fall, “I don’t think this is a big deal in the grand scheme,” Reed said, “as most trees will keep a significant share of leaves until the fall.”