Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Wind to 40 mph Saturday. Color may come down before it turns.
2 reports came in from Oxford County this week, 1 of them patchy color and 1 of them just starting. Our date held. See the county on the map.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.
Around Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness Nearly all of the wilderness is in Oxford County, which is starting to turn today.By elevation The wilderness runs from about 775 to 2,417 feet. That’s 5 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 4, the low ground holds until about Oct 8, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 1,000 to 1,500 foot band.
2,000–2,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 423%
1,500–2,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 540%
1,000–1,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 726%
500–1,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 88%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the wilderness’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the wilderness stands in it.
See it now PhenoCam Network, Bartlett Experimental Forest camera, 13 km away, captured Sep 25.
That’s 1 day earlier than our model alone would say. This September has been running cool, which shifts peak color.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Monday 5 October to Tuesday 6 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
2,000–2,500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 4
1,500–2,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 5
1,000–1,500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 7
Where to drive
Kancamagus Highway, about 32 miles · Route 112 (Lost River Road), about 47 miles · Route 100, about 96 miles
What turns
sugar maple, red maple, paper birch, yellow birch, American beech
What turns, and when
sugar maple30%
red maple20%
paper birch20%
yellow birch10%
American beech10%
quaking aspen10%
Also named across Maine, outside what the canopy read measures here: White Birch, Red Oak.
Maine's fall is defined by the contrast of scarlet maples and golden birches against dark spruce, with the rocky coast adding a blue backdrop that makes every color more vivid.
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. We score it here against 27 long-running forest cameras: two dates in three land within 10 days of the camera’s own peak. How this map is made
