We don’t forecast fall color here. Measured turning canopy covers 0.04% of this unit, below the 0.5% we forecast on. Our model reads latitude and elevation and will happily produce a date for anywhere; publishing one here would be a category error rather than an uncertain forecast, so we don’t.
That’s 1 day later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.
The place
Experience outdoor thrills, striking landscapes, and brilliant blue waters. This year-round recreation area spreads across 1.5 million acres of mountains, canyons, valleys and two vast reservoirs. Visitors come here for scenic drives, biking, hiking, boating, fishing, camping, and much more.
Established 1964.
If you can only come on certain days
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Sunday 25 October to Monday 26 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
- What turns
- bigtooth maple, velvet ash, Fremont cottonwood, willow, Arizona walnut
What turns, and when
- bigtooth maple17%
- velvet ash17%
- Fremont cottonwood17%
- willow17%
- Arizona walnut8%
- chinkapin oak8%
Also named across Arizona, outside what the canopy read measures here: Quaking Aspen, Gambel Oak, Arizona Sycamore.
Aspens on the San Francisco Peaks turn gold above 8,000 feet, Gambel oaks go orange and russet at mid-elevations, and cottonwoods line the creek bottoms in butter yellow.
Across Arizona as a whole: Late September at high elevations, mid-October in the canyons.
This forecast is built from the species that stand here, their elevation and this September’s weather, and corrected in season by cameras, foresters and our own crew. Out here we score it against NASA's satellite record of when the canopy shuts down, read inside each unit’s own boundary: two dates in three land within 12 days of it. How this map is made