Memorial Parkway·DC, Maryland, Virginia·8,748 acres
George Washington Memorial Parkway
Forecast issued 25 Sep, 5:21pm ET
Peak color30 OctAim for 29 Oct to 1 Nov
In the parkway today, Sep 25Still green
Roadsides and wetland edges turn first, and the woods behind them run a few days later.
12 reports came in from Arlington County this week, 9 of them still green and 2 of them just starting. Our date held. See the county on the map.
Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.
Around George Washington Memorial Parkway Montgomery County holds most of the parkway and is still green today. Fairfax County, to the west, is 2 days behind. Arlington County, to the northeast, is 4 days behind.By elevation The parkway runs from about 2 to 317 feet. It turns together: there isn’t enough relief here for the color to come down in stages.
0–1,000 ftStill greenpeak Oct 3096%
SepOctNov
Height off 3DEP inside the parkway’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the parkway stands in it.
See it now PhenoCam Network, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center camera, 31 km away, captured Sep 25.
That’s 3 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.
Thursday 29 October to Friday 30 October
You’ll find it peak color.
That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.
Where to drive
Skyline Drive, about 73 miles · Route 39 (Goshen Pass), about 143 miles
What turns
white oak, northern red oak, red maple, shagbark hickory, blackgum
What turns, and when
white oak27%
northern red oak24%
red maple18%
shagbark hickory12%
blackgum6%
sweetgum5%
Also named across Virginia, outside what the canopy read measures here: Tulip Poplar, Sourwood.
Shenandoah's overlooks reveal a warm mosaic of gold tulip poplars, scarlet maples, bronze hickories, and the deep wine of white oaks stretching along the Blue Ridge.
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 7 long-running forest cameras: two dates in three land within 13 days of the camera’s own peak. How this map is made
