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It is the time of the year again. Trees will slowly start to change their colors. The landscape will turn into a sea of yellow, green and red and it will look just magically. It is fall again on the northern hemisphere.
Autumn is a great season to go out and capture amazing landscape photos of trees and whole forests changing their color.
Trees in higher elevations and further north start first changing their colors, while trees in lower regions or farther south will follow a few days to weeks later. All depending on the location and weather conditions in the area. I want to give you some resources to check for the current fall foliage conditions.
United States
Smoky Mountains
A great resource to track the fall colors is the Fall Foliage Tracker from Smoky Mountains. It is an interactive map, which gives you a forecast of how the fall foliage will progress throughout the weeks. Smoky Mountains provides this map every year. It is a great source to keep for the future. The Smoky Mountains map shows the fall foliage condition for the contiguous U.S. each year. I will cover Alaska separately and Hawaii is not known for it’s fall colors.
Explore Fall
Another great site is Explore Fall. It has a very detailed map and users can report on their local fall foliage as well. I love that this map not only lets you use a time slider to see how the fall foliage will proceed throughout the next day, you can also zoom in to give you a better idea about your area.
No predictive map is ever a hundred percent accurate, even with crowdsourcing. Many of these sites allows users to report the fall foliage in their area but the conditions can change quickly. As we get towards peak the leaves are more suspect to inclement weather. Wind and rain can knock of the leaves and gone is the amazing fall color in the trees.
While these maps gives a great overview of the continental United States, it doesn’t hurt to also check local state websites and their reporting of fall colors.
Extra Tip: Always check when the conditions were last updated. The fall foliage changes quickly and a two week old map can ruin your photo trip as it is completely out of date.
Alaska
None of the sites above included Alaska even though Alaska has some amazing fall colors to offer. Alaska is also one of the first states reaching peak.
The Foliage Report covers areas of the U.S. rather than showing the whole country. This includes the West Coast and Alaska. The maps are rather simple and there is no slider to see how it will change. The map is updated weekly.
International Fall Foliage Conditions
Here a few international sites with maps which track the fall foliage.
England
Forestry England has a great map of the fall foliage in England.
Switzerland
The Swiss government has an awesome website to track the fall foliage. They also list a ton of webcams to get a live view of different locations throughout the country. Their site is just amazing and has so many useful information.
Conclusion
For people living or visiting the United States to experience the fall foliage, there are a lot of ressources. It looks very dim for the rest of the world. I was able to find many sites giving suggestions where to go and an approximate timeframe, but no real map or overview in general of the current state of the fall foliage.
If you know of other great sites showing the fall foliage, let me know and I will expand the list. No matter if in the US or abroad. I want this to be a great source to find fall colors no matter where you are or planning to go.
Peter is an award-winning photographer who travels all over the world to capture the beauty of our planet as well as the achievements of humanity. Follow Peter on his travel blog Gate to Adventures for more amazing places to go and explore.
