Ohio Fall Foliage Map 2026

The county map today

Where to go in Ohio

The destinations we cover in Ohio, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.

1. Cuyahoga Valley National ParkOhio
   Too earlyPeak 20 Oct, oak 26 Oct best 19 to 22 Oct
2. Wayne National ForestOhio
   Too earlyPeak 24 Oct best 23 to 26 Oct
3. Ottawa National Wildlife RefugeOhio
   Too earlyPeak 25 Oct best 24 to 27 Oct
4. Hopewell Culture National Historical ParkOhio
   Too earlyPeak 25 Oct best 24 to 27 Oct
5. Cedar Point National Wildlife RefugeOhio
   Too earlyPeak 26 Oct best 25 to 28 Oct

When to go

Across 88 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Medina County around Oct 19 and last in Hamilton County around Oct 26. Most of the state peaks near Oct 21.

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 3 days late in Ohio. 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.

Mid-October in the northeast, late October in the Hocking Hills and southern Ohio is how Ohio is usually described.

What actually turns

Hocking Hills' sandstone gorges frame sugar maples in vivid orange, red oaks turn deep burgundy across the unglaciated Appalachian Plateau, and beeches fade to bronze in the ravines.

• Sugar Maple
• Red Oak
• White Oak
• Hickory
• American Beech

Hocking Hills State Park is Ohio's fall destination, where sandstone caves and waterfalls are framed by maples and hemlocks in the third and fourth weeks of October.

Worth the drive

Every county, by peak week

Lake Erie does a lot of the work here. The Lake Erie 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.