I was just in Youngstown, OH area last week. I think there must have been a freeze after bud break as many trees, especially hickories look like the new growth was torched. As for the roadside trees, I've noticed that for years around Somerset, PA. The symptoms are spot on for de-icing salts.

The elevation isn't THAT much higher, this isn't the Rockies!

Yes, but Mt Washington, NH @ only 6000 ft is much colder than the equivalent altitude in the Rockies. Jet-stream (& cold upper-air) is much lower in the east US than the west.

Yes, I've seen some localized tree damage, especially along highways, in the Alleghenies SE of Pittsburgh. Haven't figured it out. Could be ozone, Gypsy moths, sulfur, salt spray, etc. But it does seem the understory trees are growing up to replace the damage.

I'd reckon recent frost damage has something to do w/late or damaged emergence.

Sycamore here has leaf damage as usual. Hard to tell how much is anthracnose or frost damage, tho.

Agreed the understory looks good in PA for the most part. What makes no sense to me is why the salt spray damage is SO MUCH worse in that stretch of PA than anywhere else? Could it be the method the PA DOT applies the salt?

There was some frost damage in OH for sure...There have been two freeze events this May there, interspersed between an otherwise quite warm May.

There were a few singed leaves on my dad's Japanese Maple that were probably due to frost, but the shoots themselves were intact and few leaves had more than a little damage. I saw some oaks with "crinkly" looking older leaves that might have been frosted.

The only major frost damage I could see conclusively were on the Ailanthus trees that sprout up everywhere...a clump of them at a low site near my father's house were completely zapped. Not that anyone would care if some Ailanthus were killed.

The cornfields looked fine even 2 days after the freeze on May 25. Things like tomatoes and peppers, etc were toast in much of the Akron area though.

"Yes, but Mt Washington, NH @ only 6000 ft is much colder than the equivalent altitude in the Rockies. Jet-stream (& cold upper-air) is much lower in the east US than the west."

The Jet Stream isn't actually higher in the west, but the average surface elevation IS much higher, of course. Since surface heating has a lot to do with surface temperature, the widespread higher elevations in the west result in an overall warmer lower atmosphere, compared to similar altitude in the east.

In SW Pa we had 2 frosts after leafout in Fayette county. My area had leafout in late April. On I 70 salt is likely an issue, but I will give you a possible "witches broom" growth reason. I have seen tractors with what I can only describe as mower decks mounted on mechanical "arms". They lift the bladed mower decks up and the arms make the blade decks cut back whatever hangs over the road surface. That's my educated guess for the weird growth of the trees.

Thanks. I like these kind of posts.

"Up there, around 2500 ft elevation, some of the oaks were barely in the bud-swell/catkins stage...is that normal? "

Whatever the official adiabatic lapse rate is the not very high elevation towns of Binghampton, NY and Altoona, PA attest to the fact that for the first 1000 ft. or so, you will see almost a 6F drop compared to Islip, NY or suburban Philly. (areas deliberately excluding the "heat island" issue) So that's going to slow down spring progression a lot; and as other mentioned it already was a slow spring this year, with late frosts. As I've posted before it's surprising if you drive north of Sunbury or Scranton PA to areas only about 1600-2000 ft. in elevation, the scenery starts to look surprisingly alpine in terms of flora at least. Hemlocks and naturalizing Larix in the former, white birches for the latter.

I can look up at 2200' Tussey mnt (PA) nearby & see the top still isn't fully emerged. Up there is mostly oak w/scattered patches of VA, pitch & E white pine.

Near State College, beng? I didn't think there were Virginia Pine up there... though I have seen Table Mountain.

famartin, right at the PA/MD border, on the MD side.

So it sounds pretty typical.

I also noticed a few years ago in Massachusetts driving from the NW suburbs of Boston to Cape Cod around June 5, and seeing a similar thing. Out on the Cape the trees looked like late April here in MD, but in and NW of Boston everything was well into full leaf. This was several days into June.

My guess is the cold ocean waters keep the area much, much cooler than interior MA.