Roadsides and wetland edges turn first, and the woods behind them run a few days later.
Weather Wind to 40 mph Saturday. Color may come down before it turns.
13 reports came in from York County this week, 5 of them patchy color and 5 of them just starting. Our date held. See the county on the map.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecast
Around Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge York County holds most of the refuge and is starting to turn today. Cumberland County, to the north, is 1 day ahead.By elevation The refuge runs from about 3 to 89 feet. It turns together: there isn’t enough relief here for the color to come down in stages.
0–1,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1697%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the refuge’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the refuge stands in it.
See it now PhenoCam Network, University of New Hampshire camera, 45 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.
Thursday 15 October to Friday 16 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
Where to drive
Kancamagus Highway, about 67 miles · Route 112 (Lost River Road), about 80 miles · Route 100, about 117 miles
What turns
red maple, blackgum, sweetgum, water oak, white oak
What turns, and when
red maple24%
blackgum13%
sweetgum12%
water oak12%
white oak12%
silver maple9%
Also named across Maine, outside what the canopy read measures here: Sugar Maple, White Birch, American Beech, 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
