Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.
Weather Wind to 35 mph Saturday. Color may come down before it turns.
No new reports from the ground here this week.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.
Around Theodore Roosevelt National Park Billings County holds most of the park and is starting to turn today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 8 days later than the park’s own stands: the park is nearly peak. McKenzie County, to the north, is 5 days ahead.By elevation The park runs from about 2,122 to 2,776 feet. That’s 8 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 13, the low ground holds until about Oct 5, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 2,000 to 2,250 foot band.
2,750–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 137%
2,500–2,750 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1140%
2,250–2,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 727%
2,000–2,250 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 526%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the park’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the park stands in it.
That’s 3 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.
The place
Roosevelt came to the North Dakota Badlands in 1883 after his wife and mother died on the same day. The landscape put him back together. The park that carries his name protects that same stretch of broken, banded earth where the Little Missouri River has carved striped buttes out of ancient seabed. It is emptier and stranger than almost anything in the lower 48.
Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.
Wednesday 30 September to Thursday 1 October
You’ll find it starting to turn up high, nearly peak lower down.
Up at 2,500 feet the stands peak around Oct 11; down at 2,250 feet they hold on until about Oct 5. Pick your elevation for the day you come.
2,500–2,750 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 11
2,250–2,500 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 7
2,000–2,250 ftNearly peakpeak Oct 5
What turns
plains cottonwood, green ash, boxelder, willow, American elm
Entrance
$30
What turns, and when
plains cottonwood29%
green ash21%
boxelder10%
willow10%
American elm10%
bur oak10%
Every one of these turns yellow or gold here. The shades only tell the species apart.
Also named across North Dakota, outside what the canopy read measures here: Quaking Aspen.
The Turtle Mountains and Pembina Gorge produce a boreal mix of aspen gold and oak russet, while cottonwoods line the Missouri River breaks in pale yellow.
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. Out here we score it against NASA's satellite record of when the canopy shuts down, read inside each unit’s own boundary: two dates in three land within 12 days of it. How this map is made
