Peak color lands around Nov 4 in most of North Carolina, but it moves 22 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
North Carolina’s season, place by place
The 24 places closest to their peak in North Carolina, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Middle Prong Wilderness, Oct 15. Last: Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, Nov 7.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Nov 1. 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 North Carolina
The destinations we cover in North Carolina, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Middle Prong WildernessToo earlyPeak 15 Oct best 14 to 17 Oct
- Shining Rock WildernessToo earlyPeak 18 Oct best 17 to 20 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 21 Oct best 20 to 23 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 22 Oct best 21 to 24 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 22 Oct best 21 to 24 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 22 Oct best 21 to 24 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 23 Oct best 22 to 25 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 25 Oct best 24 to 27 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 26 Oct best 25 to 28 Oct
- Ellicott Rock WildernessToo earlyPeak 26 Oct best 25 to 28 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 27 Oct best 26 to 29 Oct
- Carl Sandburg Home National Historic SiteToo earlyPeak 27 Oct best 26 to 29 Oct
- Guilford Courthouse National Military ParkToo earlyPeak 1 Nov best 31 Oct to 3 Nov
- Birkhead Mountains WildernessToo earlyPeak 3 Nov best 2 to 5 Nov
- Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 4 Nov best 3 to 6 Nov
- Too earlyPeak 4 Nov best 3 to 6 Nov
- Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 6 Nov best 5 to 8 Nov
- Roanoke River National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 6 Nov best 5 to 8 Nov
- Alligator River National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 7 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
- Mattamuskeet National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 7 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
- Too earlyPeak 7 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
- Mackay Island National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 7 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
- Pee Dee National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 7 Nov, birch 14 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
- Pea Island National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 7 Nov best 6 to 9 Nov
Also forecast in North CarolinaCape Lookout National SeashoreCroatan National Forest
When to go
Across 100 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Haywood County around Oct 19 and last in Columbus County around Nov 10. Most of the state peaks near Nov 4.
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 7 long-running forest monitoring sites in this part of the country and publish what it got wrong.
This autumn is running 4 days late in North Carolina. 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 above 5,000 feet, mid-to-late October on the Parkway, early November in the Piedmont is how North Carolina is usually described.
What actually turns
Sourwoods turn deep crimson before anything else, tulip poplars go clear gold, hickories fade to bronze, and the layered ridgelines of the Blue Ridge create that famous smoky depth of warm color.
- Tulip Poplar
- Red Maple
- Sourwood
- Hickory
- White Oak
The Blue Ridge Parkway from Craggy Gardens to Waterrock Knob (Mile 364 to 451) is the highest, most dramatic section and produces the most intense color in the southern Appalachians.
Worth the drive
Haywood County sits at the heart of the Blue Ridge in western North Carolina. Great Smoky Mountains National Park covers much of the southern portion, and the Blue Ridge Parkway crosses the northern ridges. Elevation ranges from 1,800 to over 6,000 feet, which means color lasts four to six weeks as it rolls downhill from the balds to the valley floor.
Buncombe County is home to Asheville and sits in the French Broad River valley surrounded by some of the highest peaks in the eastern US. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs along the county's eastern edge, and the Craggy Gardens section above 5,500 feet produces color in early October while downtown Asheville's streets do not peak until late October.
Every county, by peak week
Elevation does most of the work here. Color runs down a mountain at roughly a day and a half per 100 meters, so a ridge and the valley below it can be two weeks apart in the same county. On the coast the water adds its own delay, the shoreline itself 4 days behind the same trees inland.
Haywood
Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Clay, Graham, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga, Yancey
Alamance, Alexander, Burke, Caldwell, Caswell, Catawba, Cherokee, Cleveland, Davidson, Davie, Forsyth, Granville, Guilford, Iredell, Lincoln, McDowell, Orange, Person, Polk, Randolph, Rockingham, Rutherford, Stokes, Surry, Vance, Warren, Wilkes, Yadkin
Anson, Beaufort, Bertie, Bladen, Brunswick, Cabarrus, Camden, Carteret, Chatham, Chowan, Columbus, Craven, Cumberland, Currituck, Dare, Duplin, Durham, Edgecombe, Franklin, Gaston, Gates, Greene, Halifax, Harnett, Hertford, Hoke, Hyde, Johnston, Jones, Lee, Lenoir, Martin, Mecklenburg, Montgomery, Moore, Nash, New Hanover, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Pender, Perquimans, Pitt, Richmond, Robeson, Rowan, Sampson, Scotland, Stanly, Tyrrell, Union, Wake, Washington, Wayne, Wilson
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