Peak color lands around Oct 12 in most of Wisconsin, but it moves 15 days across the state. Here’s where, and when, and how sure we are.
Wisconsin’s season, place by place
Every place we forecast in Wisconsin, each set on the calendar at its peak and painted by how far along it is today, Sep 25.
First: Blackjack Springs Wilderness, Oct 4. Last: Gravel Island National Wildlife Refuge, Oct 17.
The dashed rule is today; the solid one is the median of the places on this chart, Oct 12. 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 Wisconsin
The destinations we cover in Wisconsin, in the order their color arrives. Each carries its own forecast and its own band, because a state isn’t one place.
- Blackjack Springs WildernessNear peakPeak 4 Oct best 3 to 6 Oct
- Porcupine Lake WildernessNear peakPeak 4 Oct best 3 to 6 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Headwaters WildernessToo earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Whisker Lake WildernessToo earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Rainbow Lake WildernessToo earlyPeak 5 Oct best 4 to 7 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 6 Oct best 5 to 8 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 8 Oct best 7 to 10 Oct
- Necedah National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 12 Oct best 11 to 14 Oct
- Too earlyPeak 12 Oct best 11 to 14 Oct
- Gaylord Nelson Wilderness AreaToo earlyPeak 12 Oct best 11 to 14 Oct
- Trempealeau National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Green Bay National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Winnebago County Waterfowl Production Area of WiToo earlyPeak 13 Oct best 12 to 15 Oct
- Horicon National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 14 Oct best 13 to 16 Oct
- Fox River National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 14 Oct best 13 to 16 Oct
- Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish RefugeToo earlyPeak 15 Oct best 14 to 17 Oct
- Gravel Island National Wildlife RefugeToo earlyPeak 17 Oct best 16 to 19 Oct
When to go
Across 72 counties, peak color is forecast to arrive first in Iron County around Oct 4 and last in Milwaukee County around Oct 19. Most of the state peaks near Oct 12.
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 2 days late in Wisconsin. 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.
1 of 72 counties here are corrected by people who have actually looked at the trees this season. 4 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 Northwoods, mid-October in Door County, early-to-mid October in the Driftless Area, late October in the south is how Wisconsin is usually described.
What actually turns
Wisconsin's Northwoods produce vivid sugar maple orange against birch gold and the dark green of hemlock and spruce, while the Mississippi River bluffs add a warm oak-and-hickory palette.
- Sugar Maple
- Red Maple
- Quaking Aspen
- Paper Birch
- Red Oak
The Great River Road along the Mississippi bluffs from La Crosse to Prairie du Chien is one of the most underrated fall drives in the Midwest, with limestone bluffs backed by blazing oaks.
Worth the drive
La Crosse County on the Mississippi River in western Wisconsin sits where the Driftless Area's bluffs meet the river. This landscape was never glaciated, so the terrain is deeply carved and hilly in a way that the rest of the Midwest is not. The oak-hickory forest on the bluffs turns warm gold and russet, and the views from Grandad Bluff over the Mississippi are among the finest in the upper river valley.
Milwaukee County is an urban pick, but the Lake Michigan lakefront and the county park system's mature hardwood canopy produce a surprisingly vivid fall. The real reason to include it is proximity: most visitors to Wisconsin's fall color fly into Milwaukee, and the drive north up the lakeshore on I-43 through Sheboygan and Manitowoc counties is one of the most pleasant fall road trips in the Midwest.
Every county, by peak week
Lake Michigan does a lot of the work here. The Lake Michigan 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.
Ashland, Bayfield, Douglas, Florence, Forest, Iron, Langlade regional, Lincoln, Marinette, Oconto observed, Oneida, Price, Sawyer, Vilas, Washburn
Adams, Barron, Brown regional, Buffalo, Burnett, Calumet, Chippewa, Clark, Dunn, Eau Claire, Fond du Lac, Green Lake, Jackson, Juneau, La Crosse, Marathon, Marquette, Menominee regional, Monroe, Outagamie regional, Pepin, Pierce, Polk, Portage, Rusk, Shawano regional, St. Croix, Taylor, Trempealeau, Vernon, Waupaca, Waushara, Winnebago, Wood
Columbia, Crawford, Dane, Dodge, Door regional, Grant, Green, Iowa, Jefferson, Kenosha, Kewaunee regional, Lafayette, Manitowoc, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Racine, Richland, Rock, Sauk, Sheboygan, Walworth, Washington, Waukesha
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