Roadsides and wetland edges turn first, and the woods behind them run a few days later.
No new reports from the ground here this week.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecast
Around Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Leelanau County holds most of the lakeshore and is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 3 days earlier than the lakeshore’s own stands: the lakeshore is still green. Benzie County, to the south, is 2 days ahead.
That’s 2 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Saturday 17 October to Sunday 18 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
Where to drive
Tunnel of Trees (M-119), about 64 miles
What turns
sugar maple, red maple, paper birch, quaking aspen, yellow birch
What turns, and when
sugar maple25%
red maple21%
paper birch17%
quaking aspen9%
yellow birch8%
American beech8%
Also named across Michigan, outside what the canopy read measures here: Red Oak.
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.
Across Michigan as a whole: Early October in the inland UP, mid-October on the Lake Superior shore and in the northern Lower Peninsula, late October in the south.
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 13 long-running forest cameras: two dates in three land within 9 days of the camera’s own peak. How this map is made
