Use the 2024 Fall Foliage Forecast Map to plan a leaf-peeping trip

It's officially time to start planning your fall foliage viewing trips. Whether you're planning a scenic drive along the Million Dollar Highway near Ouray or other top fall color spots in Colorado, a trip to Bucks County in Pennsylvania to see the fall colors framing the bridges, or any of these fall trips on your bucket list, this is it.

The key to planning fall foliage trips and tours, however, is timing them right, especially if you want to time your foliage-viewing trip to coincide with the best color display, the best time when the leaves are ablaze with brilliant scarlet, deep orange, and vibrant yellow. To help you do that, the 2024 Fall Foliage Forecast Map was released today, which can take some of the guesswork out of planning your fall vacation.

Much like a weekend weather forecast, the timing of the map update is important, explains David Angotti, statistics expert and founder of SmokyMountains.com. The backbone of the map is meteorology, he explains, taking into account factors such as temperature, humidity, sunlight and precipitation.

“While meteorology is most accurate immediately before an event, a forecast is more useful to travelers and end users when it is prepared in advance,” says Angotti.

Therefore, Angotti and his team use a unique mix of historical and forecast data to make predictions for this time of year.

“The drastic changes from year to year require us to create a new map from scratch with new data every year,” he says. “Our ultimate goal is to create a map that is useful and fun to use.”

No tool can be 100% accurate, the team cautions, but the interactive map is designed to help travelers better plan their trips and have the best chance of seeing the most beautiful colors each year. And those details are important because users have come to rely on the map to plan everything from small weddings to annual family photos and fall vacations.

The interactive tool is put together each year by SmokyMountains.com, a Smoky Mountains tourism website that markets vacation rentals. Leaf-gazers flock to the region to see the fall foliage on famous drives like Clingmans Dome Road and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

How to use the 2024 interactive fall foliage map

When using the 2024 fall color forecast map, you can toggle the slider for a weekly forecast that tracks color changes in different parts of the country.

On the map of the United States, the seasons are shown with the strongest colors.

The county-by-county fall forecast color chart ranges from “no change” to “past peak.” There are also predictions for when fall color will be spotty, partial, near peak, and at peak.

The 2024 fall color prediction map tracks color changes starting September 2, but don't worry, you haven't missed anything yet: The map is almost entirely green, indicating that the leaves have not yet begun to change color.

But during the week of September 9, the trees, especially in the northern parts of the country, begin to take on a little autumnal color. The map continues until November 18, when most trees have shed their leaves and are preparing for winter.

In which week will fall foliage reach its peak in 2024?

The color of fall foliage depends on your location in the United States.

The scientists behind the fall foliage predictor feed an algorithm with more than 50,000 data points, including historical temperatures, historical precipitation, forecast temperatures and forecast precipitation from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

But the fall foliage map is also partly a citizen science project. In 2022, the team introduced a form that allowed leaf-gazers to fill out reports of changing leaves they observed in their own region. The reports help refine the data.

In 2023, a new feature allowed users to submit photos of fall foliage along with their report, which helped the predictor map team refine its data. Mid-season updates are available to improve the data even further.

Want to plan your trip right when the leaves are at their brightest? In New England, for example, fall foliage is expected to begin around September 30, 2024, and will really bloom on October 7.

Are you traveling to Stowe, known as the “Fall Color Capital”? The 2024 fall color in Vermont is expected to peak on September 30, 2024, and on October 7, 2024, the entire state will be ablaze with color.

The fall foliage season really begins at the end of September.

According to the map, between September 23 and 30, 2024, patches of color will appear near and at the peak of the growing season in Utah, Colorado and northern parts of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Minnesota, as well as isolated areas in New England.

If you take a look at the map for the week of October 7-14, 2024, you'll see that several parts of the United States are at their most vibrant, making it the best time for leaf color and fall foliage tours 2024.

Here is the foliage forecast map for the week of October 21, 2024, when some parts of the U.S. will have already finished leaf change and others will have reached full color:

Great Ways to See Fall Foliage in the United States in 2024

Looking for inspiration for your next fall foliage outing? The team behind the Fall Foliage Map also compiled a list of the best places to see fall foliage in each state for 2024. The curated list ranges from Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, where “tree canopies form a quilt of color” on Old Rag Mountain to

Coopers Rock State Park in West Virginia offers panoramic views of the Cheat River Gorge.

According to the fall foliage map, Shenandoah National Park is expected to experience its most colorful season during the week of October 14-21, 2024, while other parts of Virginia will experience its most colorful season through the end of October.

West Virginia's fall foliage map shows that colors should peak in most parts of the state between October 14 and 22, 2024.

Other top spots to see fall foliage in 2024 include an 8-day fall foliage cruise on the Hudson River, where views of the riverbank glow in shades of red, orange and gold in the fall, or a hot air balloon ride over Letchworth State Park in New York, where Balloon Rides Over Letchworth also offers views of the falls.