Peak color lands around Oct 9 in most of New Hampshire, but it moves 13 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
New Hampshire’s season, place by place
Every place we forecast in New Hampshire, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Great Gulf Wilderness, Sep 29. Last: Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Oct 15.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Oct 4. 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 New Hampshire
The destinations we cover in New Hampshire, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Great Gulf WildernessPeakPeak 29 Sep best 28 Sep to 1 Oct
- Pinkham Notch Scenic AreaPeakPeak 30 Sep best 29 Sep to 2 Oct
- Near peakPeak 2 Oct best 1 to 4 Oct
- Near peakPeak 2 Oct best 1 to 4 Oct
- Gibbs Brook Scenic AreaNear peakPeak 2 Oct best 1 to 4 Oct
- Lafayette Brook Scenic AreaNear peakPeak 2 Oct best 1 to 4 Oct
- Near peakPeak 3 Oct best 2 to 5 Oct
- Nancy Brook Scenic AreaNear peakPeak 3 Oct best 2 to 5 Oct
- Greeley Ponds Scenic AreaNear peakPeak 3 Oct best 2 to 5 Oct
- Near peakPeak 4 Oct best 3 to 6 Oct
- Near peakPeak 4 Oct best 3 to 6 Oct
- Umbagog National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Sawyer Pond Scenic AreaToo earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Mount Chocorua Scenic AreaToo earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Wapack National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 10 Oct best 9 to 12 Oct
- Saint-Gaudens National Historical ParkToo earlyPeak 11 Oct best 10 to 13 Oct
- Great Bay National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 15 Oct best 14 to 17 Oct
When to go
Across 10 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Coos County around Sep 29 and last in Strafford County around Oct 12. Most of the state peaks near Oct 9.
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 27 long-running forest monitoring sites in this part of the country and publish what it got wrong.
This autumn is running 1 day early in New Hampshire. September has run cooler 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.
3 of 10 counties here are corrected by people who have actually looked at the trees this season. 59 reports from official state sources have moved those dates off the model and narrowed their windows. Counties with neither keep the model forecast and say so. Which is which is marked in the table below.
Late September in the White Mountains, early-to-mid October in the Lakes Region, late October in the south is how New Hampshire is usually described.
What actually turns
New Hampshire's White Mountains produce the most dramatic fall color in the Northeast, with sugar maples blazing orange and scarlet against the granite peaks and dark green of spruce.
- Sugar Maple
- Red Maple
- Yellow Birch
- White Birch
- American Beech
The Kancamagus Highway between Lincoln and Conway is a 34-mile corridor through the heart of White Mountain color, peaking in early-to-mid October.
Worth the drive
Grafton County contains the heart of the White Mountains, including Franconia Notch, the Kancamagus Highway's western end, and some of the most rugged terrain in the Northeast. The combination of granite peaks, alpine birch, and hardwood valleys produces a dramatic fall landscape with color starting at treeline in late September and filling the notches by early October.
Carroll County covers the eastern White Mountains, including the Kancamagus Highway's most dramatic stretches, Mount Washington, and the Conway valley. The Kanc from Lincoln to Conway crosses 2,855-foot Kancamagus Pass and is widely considered one of the five best fall drives in America. The six pullouts along the Swift River are mandatory stops.
Every county, by peak week
Elevation does most of the work here. Color runs down a mountain at roughly a day per 100 meters, so a ridge and the valley below it can be a week or two apart in the same county.
Coos observed
Carroll corrected, Grafton corrected
Belknap regional, Cheshire, Hillsborough regional, Merrimack, Rockingham regional, Strafford, Sullivan
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