This time of year, every year, the leaves of America’s trees are starting to change color. But it’s a little more complicated than that, right? The timing and hues of the fall color change vary with geography and even temperature and precipitation, and so it can be hard to know for sure when the leaves in an area will change. Well, this will help!

With the interactive 2018 Fall Foliage Prediction Map (above), you can map the status and even anticipated status of the color-change cycle (from “no change” through “past peak”) by region and by date (dates are one-week apart). To use it, simply select a date by moving the white circle on the slider. The map will then update to display the predicted status of America’s leaves on that date. The week of October 8, for example, is expected to be peak in much of New England.

The tool was developed by SmokyMountains.com, a resource and booking tool dedicated to travel in the Smoky Mountains. Some 50,000 predictive pieces of data found their way into the final algorithm, according to the team, much of it from the NOAA (like historical temperature and precipitation patterns). On the map’s accuracy, SmokyMountains.com co-founder and CTO Wes Melton says, “Although simply entering rainfall, temperature data, elevations, and other data points into a model will never be 100% accurate, this combined with our proprietary, historical data drives our model to become more accurate each year. However, unexpected rainfall that falls well outside of expected trends can always change the peak foliage dates and brilliance.”

Do you like this tool? Let us know in the comments!

An interactive guide to when the leaves will change color in 2018

 

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2 Comments On "An Interactive Guide to When America's Leaves Will Change Color in 2018"
  1. Kay|

    Love it! Especially nice to see the county outlines.

  2. Jessica Hill|

    Nice little interactive tool! Thank you.

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