Peak color lands around Oct 18 in most of Iowa, but it moves 10 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
Iowa’s season, place by place
Every place we forecast in Iowa, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge, Oct 9. Last: Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, Oct 20.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Oct 16. 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 Iowa
The destinations we cover in Iowa, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 9 Oct best 8 to 11 Oct
- Union Slough National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 14 Oct best 13 to 16 Oct
- Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish RefugeToo earlyPeak 15 Oct best 14 to 17 Oct
- Effigy Mounds National MonumentToo earlyPeak 15 Oct, oak 20 Oct best 14 to 17 Oct
- Driftless Area National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 16 Oct, oak 20 Oct best 15 to 18 Oct
- Desoto National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 19 Oct best 18 to 21 Oct
- Port Louisa National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 20 Oct best 19 to 22 Oct
- Neal Smith National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 20 Oct, oak 23 Oct best 19 to 22 Oct
- Herbert Hoover National Historic SiteToo earlyPeak 20 Oct, oak 23 Oct best 19 to 22 Oct
When to go
Across 99 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Howard County around Oct 13 and last in Taylor County around Oct 23. Most of the state peaks near Oct 18.
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 13 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 Iowa. 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.
Early-to-mid October in the northeast, late October in the south is how Iowa is usually described.
What actually turns
The Mississippi River bluffs light up with red oaks turning burgundy, sugar maples going orange, and basswoods fading to pale gold against the limestone cliffs.
- Sugar Maple
- Red Oak
- White Oak
- Hickory
- Basswood
The Great River Road along the Mississippi bluffs from Dubuque south to McGregor is Iowa's finest fall landscape, with Pikes Peak State Park offering a 500-foot view over the river.
Every county, by peak week
Latitude does most of the work here: color moves south at about two days per degree, so the north of the state turns a week or more ahead of the south.
Emmet, Howard, Lyon, Mitchell, Osceola, Winnebago, Worth
Adair, Allamakee, Audubon, Benton, Black Hawk, Boone, Bremer, Buchanan, Buena Vista, Butler, Calhoun, Carroll, Cass, Cedar, Cerro Gordo, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Clay, Clayton, Crawford, Dallas, Delaware, Dickinson, Dubuque, Fayette, Floyd, Franklin, Greene, Grundy, Guthrie, Hamilton, Hancock, Hardin, Harrison, Humboldt, Ida, Iowa, Jackson, Jasper, Johnson, Jones, Kossuth, Linn, Marshall, Mills, Monona, O'Brien, Palo Alto, Plymouth, Pocahontas, Polk, Pottawattamie, Poweshiek, Sac, Shelby, Sioux, Story, Tama, Webster, Winneshiek, Woodbury, Wright
Adams, Appanoose, Clarke, Clinton, Davis, Decatur, Des Moines, Fremont, Henry, Jefferson, Keokuk, Lee, Louisa, Lucas, Madison, Mahaska, Marion, Monroe, Montgomery, Muscatine, Page, Ringgold, Scott, Taylor, Union, Van Buren, Wapello, Warren, Washington, Wayne
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