Peak color lands around Oct 14 in most of Michigan, but it moves 17 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
Michigan’s season, place by place
The 24 places closest to their peak in Michigan, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Sylvania Wilderness, Oct 3. Last: Sleeping Bear Dunes Wilderness Area, Oct 14.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Oct 9. 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 Michigan
The destinations we cover in Michigan, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Sylvania WildernessNear peakPeak 3 Oct best 2 to 5 Oct
- McCormick WildernessNear peakPeak 3 Oct best 2 to 5 Oct
- Near peakPeak 4 Oct best 3 to 6 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Sturgeon River Gorge WildernessToo earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Seney National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Seney WildernessToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Big Island Lake WildernessToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Delirium WildernessToo earlyPeak 7 Oct best 6 to 9 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 8 Oct best 7 to 10 Oct
- Rock River Canyon WildernessToo earlyPeak 8 Oct best 7 to 10 Oct
- Mackinac WildernessToo earlyPeak 9 Oct best 8 to 11 Oct
- Beaver Basin Wilderness AreaToo earlyPeak 10 Oct best 9 to 12 Oct
- Michigan Islands National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 10 Oct best 9 to 12 Oct
- Huron National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 10 Oct best 9 to 12 Oct
- Huron WildernessToo earlyPeak 10 Oct best 9 to 12 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 11 Oct best 10 to 13 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 11 Oct best 10 to 13 Oct
- Keweenaw National Historical ParkToo earlyPeak 11 Oct best 10 to 13 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Green Bay National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Harbor Island National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Sleeping Bear Dunes Wilderness AreaToo earlyPeak 14 Oct best 13 to 16 Oct
Also forecast in MichiganSleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
When to go
Across 83 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Gogebic County around Oct 4 and last in Monroe County around Oct 21. Most of the state peaks near Oct 14.
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 2 days late in Michigan. 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 October in the inland UP, mid-October on the Lake Superior shore and in the northern Lower Peninsula, late October in the south is how Michigan is usually described.
What actually turns
Michigan produces some of the most vivid sugar maple color in America, with the Upper Peninsula's maples turning neon orange and scarlet against birch gold and the dark green of hemlocks.
- Sugar Maple
- Red Maple
- Quaking Aspen
- Paper Birch
- Red Oak
The Tunnel of Trees (M-119) along Lake Michigan's shore is a narrow road under a canopy of maples and birches that turns into a living cathedral of color in mid-October.
Worth the drive
Keweenaw County at the tip of Michigan's Upper Peninsula is surrounded by Lake Superior on three sides, and the lake's moderating influence holds the color back, so it arrives around the second week of October, a week after the inland UP, and lingers past mid-month. Brockway Mountain Drive, the highest above-sea-level road between the Rockies and the Alleghenies, offers views of the color canopy stretching to the lake horizon.
Leelanau County at the tip of Michigan's pinky finger is surrounded by Lake Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The combination of hardwood color, sand dunes, and turquoise Great Lakes water creates a fall experience that feels more like a European coast than the American Midwest. The Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail is the best way to experience it on foot.
Every county, by peak week
The lakes do a lot of the work here. The Great Lakes shore itself turns a week or more after the woods inland at the same latitude, and the counties along it run a few days behind, because water that soaked up a summer of heat gives it back all fall and holds the first hard frosts off. Beyond the water, latitude carries it: color moves south at about two days per degree, so the north of the state turns a week or more ahead of the south.
Baraga, Dickinson, Gogebic, Houghton, Iron, Marquette, Ontonagon
Alcona, Alger, Alpena, Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Cheboygan, Chippewa, Clare, Crawford, Delta, Emmet, Gladwin, Grand Traverse, Isabella, Kalkaska, Keweenaw, Lake, Luce, Mackinac, Mecosta, Menominee regional, Midland, Missaukee, Montmorency, Ogemaw, Osceola, Oscoda, Otsego, Presque Isle, Roscommon, Schoolcraft, Wexford
Allegan, Arenac, Barry, Bay, Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Clinton, Eaton, Genesee, Gratiot, Hillsdale, Huron, Ingham, Ionia, Iosco, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Kent, Lapeer, Leelanau, Lenawee, Livingston, Macomb, Manistee, Mason, Montcalm, Muskegon, Newaygo, Oakland, Oceana, Ottawa, Saginaw, Sanilac, Shiawassee, St. Clair, St. Joseph, Tuscola, Van Buren, Washtenaw, Wayne
Monroe
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