Peak color lands around Nov 12 in most of Georgia, but it moves 21 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
Georgia’s season, place by place
The 24 places closest to their peak in Georgia, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Southern Nantahala Wilderness, Oct 22. Last: Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge, Nov 15.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Nov 2. The date at the top of the page is the median county, which includes the low ground between them.
The county map today
Where to go in Georgia
The destinations we cover in Georgia, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Too earlyPeak 22 Oct best 21 to 24 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 26 Oct best 25 to 28 Oct
- Ellicott Rock WildernessToo earlyPeak 26 Oct best 25 to 28 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 27 Oct best 26 to 29 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 27 Oct best 26 to 29 Oct
- Coosa Bald National Scenic AreaToo earlyPeak 27 Oct best 26 to 29 Oct
- Raven Cliffs WildernessToo earlyPeak 28 Oct best 27 to 30 Oct
- Blood Mountain WildernessToo earlyPeak 28 Oct best 27 to 30 Oct
- Rich Mountain WildernessToo earlyPeak 29 Oct best 28 to 31 Oct
- Big Frog WildernessToo earlyPeak 29 Oct best 28 to 31 Oct
- Cohutta WildernessToo earlyPeak 30 Oct best 29 Oct to 1 Nov
- Too earlyPeak 30 Oct best 29 Oct to 1 Nov
- Too earlyPeak 2 Nov best 1 to 4 Nov
- Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military ParkToo earlyPeak 5 Nov best 4 to 7 Nov
- Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield ParkToo earlyPeak 7 Nov, oak 10 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
- Too earlyPeak 8 Nov best 7 to 10 Nov
- Piedmont National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 11 Nov best 10 to 13 Nov
- Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical ParkToo earlyPeak 12 Nov best 11 to 14 Nov
- Bond Swamp National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 13 Nov best 12 to 15 Nov
- Savannah National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 14 Nov best 13 to 16 Nov
- Fort Pulaski National MonumentToo earlyPeak 14 Nov best 13 to 16 Nov
- Andersonville National Historic SiteToo earlyPeak 14 Nov best 13 to 16 Nov
- Wassaw National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 15 Nov best 14 to 17 Nov
- Harris Neck National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 15 Nov best 14 to 17 Nov
Also forecast in GeorgiaCumberland Island National Seashore
When to go
Across 159 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Towns County around Oct 28 and last in Camden County around Nov 18. Most of the state peaks near Nov 12.
Each date is the middle of the four days we’d aim a trip at, and each place page names them. We score the model against 7 long-running forest monitoring sites in this part of the country and publish what it got wrong.
This autumn is running 4 days late in Georgia. September has run warmer than the 1991 to 2020 normal so far, and the dates above already include that. It’s a real signal but a modest one: temperature explains under a tenth of how much peak color moves year to year.
Mid-October at the highest elevations, late October through mid-November in the foothills is how Georgia is usually described.
What actually turns
The Blue Ridge mountains of north Georgia produce warm golds and russets from hickories and oaks, with red maples and sweetgums providing the scarlet and purple accents.
- Red Maple
- Hickory
- Sweetgum
- Tulip Poplar
- White Oak
The Richard Russell Scenic Highway (Route 348) climbs over Hogpen Gap in the Blue Ridge and is the most dramatic mountain fall drive in Georgia.
Worth the drive
Rabun County in the far northeast corner of Georgia sits where the Blue Ridge drops off into the Piedmont, and it is the most colorful county in the state. Tallulah Gorge, Black Rock Mountain State Park, and the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River all produce fall color that is more reminiscent of the Carolinas than the rest of Georgia. Peak arrives in late October.
Every county, by peak week
Elevation does most of the work here. Color runs down a mountain at roughly a day per 100 meters, so a ridge and the valley below it can be a week or two apart in the same county.
Fannin, Gilmer, Habersham, Lumpkin, Murray, Rabun, Towns, Union, White
Banks, Barrow, Bartow, Butts, Carroll, Catoosa, Chattooga, Cherokee, Clarke, Clayton, Cobb, Columbia, Coweta, Dade, Dawson, DeKalb, Douglas, Elbert, Fayette, Floyd, Forsyth, Franklin, Fulton, Gordon, Greene, Gwinnett, Hall, Haralson, Hart, Heard, Henry, Jackson, Jasper, Lincoln, Madison, McDuffie, Morgan, Newton, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Paulding, Pickens, Pike, Polk, Rockdale, Spalding, Stephens, Taliaferro, Walker, Walton, Warren, Whitfield, Wilkes
Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Baker, Baldwin, Ben Hill, Berrien, Bibb, Bleckley, Brantley, Brooks, Bryan, Bulloch, Burke, Calhoun, Candler, Charlton, Chatham, Chattahoochee, Clay, Clinch, Coffee, Colquitt, Cook, Crawford, Crisp, Decatur, Dodge, Dooly, Dougherty, Early, Echols, Effingham, Emanuel, Evans, Glascock, Glynn, Grady, Hancock, Harris, Houston, Irwin, Jeff Davis, Jefferson, Jenkins, Johnson, Jones, Lamar, Lanier, Laurens, Lee, Liberty, Long, Lowndes, Macon, Marion, McIntosh, Meriwether, Miller, Mitchell, Monroe, Montgomery, Muscogee, Peach, Pierce, Pulaski, Putnam, Quitman, Randolph, Richmond, Schley, Screven, Seminole, Stewart, Sumter, Talbot, Tattnall, Taylor, Telfair, Terrell, Thomas, Tift, Toombs, Treutlen, Troup, Turner, Twiggs, Upson, Ware, Washington, Wayne, Webster, Wheeler, Wilcox, Wilkinson, Worth
Camden
Every date on this site is a forecast: a model corrected by ground reports, carrying a measured error, published in full. Check conditions with the land manager before you travel. Last reviewed September 2026. Open the live map