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Leaf peepers, it's time to start peeping! Book your trip to the best places to see incredible fall foliage—we’ve got some predictions here to share with you—and get ready to enjoy the incredible show Mother Nature puts on for us. It’s showtime for the trees, and they’ve been working hard to perfect their autumnal yellows, reds and oranges.
So, is there an app for that? Well, close. There’s a Fall Foliage Prediction Map, put together by Smokymountains.com, that will key you in to when you can plan your visit to not miss the displays. The map shows the US with areas color-coded to show you everything from ‘no change’ in leaf color to ‘near peak’ and then ‘peak’ and ‘past peak.’ There’s a scroll bar at the bottom that you can pull to adjust the date for every Monday through Thanksgiving week—for instance, right now, no state shows anything more than ‘minimal’ for foliage, but by pulling the scroll bar to October 10, you can see that vast swaths of the nation are now in the stages of ‘partial,’ ‘near peak’ and ‘peak.’ A week later, on October 17, some parts of the country are already post peak. That’s handy information to use to book your travel.
The creators of the prediction map warn that no tool can be 100 percent accurate, but that this helps travelers make the best guess on timing their trips.
Want some geeky science info? Red leaves turn that color because of an abundance of anthocyanin. Flavonols, which are always present in leaves, turn them yellow when chlorophyll production stops. And beta-carotene absorbs green and blue light to turn leaves orange—bright orange foods like carrots and sweet potatoes are high in beta-carotene.
Enough Bill Nye for you—you just want to know where to go, when? Sure. Vermont’s one of the most famous leaf capitals of the nation (its literal capitol in Montpelier sits against a background of forested foliage if you time it right), and according to the map, October 3 is near peak, October 10 is peak, and October 17 is past peak.
In North Carolina, wait a little longer for the peak foliage around the end of October. On October 17, most of the state has partial foliage, by the 24th most parts are either near peak or peak, and by Halloween, about half the state is peaking while the other half is post peak.
A state like Texas is so large that on November 21, one third is near peak, one third is peaking and the northwest is already done. The same for Florida—on November 21, the middle of the state is peaking, while the south is near peak and the north is past peak.
As with all things, foliage and otherwise, don’t peak too soon!
Want to make it a fall foliage road trip? Check out our guide.