About Leaves.com
Leaves.com grew out of a New England tradition: chasing peak fall color.
Updated
Born in leaf-peeping country
Leaves.com is owned by Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company based in New England, where fall foliage season is one of the busiest and most anticipated times of the year. Every autumn, visitors from across the country and around the world come to see the hillsides turn. Country inns and campgrounds book up months in advance, and scenic drives like Vermont’s Route 100, New Hampshire’s Kancamagus Highway, and the Mohawk Trail in western Massachusetts fill with cars on October weekends.
Around here, “Is it peak yet?” is a real question. Locals trade tips about which valleys have turned and which ridges are already past. Travelers try to plan a trip weeks ahead without knowing whether they’ll arrive to green leaves, perfect color, or bare branches.
Why we built it
Leaves.com was created to help people get a general idea of when the best fall color can be seen, not just in New England but across the country. Peak moves in a predictable way: it starts in the far north and at high elevation, then works south and downhill over several weeks. Knowing that pattern makes it much easier to pick a weekend, choose a destination, or decide whether to drive north or head for the mountains.
The site brings that together in one place: a live foliage map for any town or ZIP code, typical peak dates by state and destination, a leaf guide for naming the trees you see, and a plain-language look at why leaves change color.
How the forecast data is put together
Every estimate on the site comes from a phenology model of typical years. For any point in the lower 48, it sets an expected peak date from three things that drive fall color timing year after year:
Latitude. In the East, peak arrives about four and a half days earlier for every degree you travel north.
Elevation. Color comes earlier as you climb, by roughly four and a half days per 1,000 feet in the East. In the Rockies, elevation matters even more than latitude.
Water. Places near the ocean and the Great Lakes turn a few days later than inland spots at the same latitude.
From that expected peak, the model tracks how much of the canopy has turned and how many leaves are still on the trees each day. A viewing score from 0 to 100 combines those with how much color each region can produce, so a sugar maple ridge in Vermont can score higher than a coastal city at the same stage. The timing patterns were checked against well-known peak periods in regions like northern New England, the Adirondacks, the Great Smokies, and Colorado’s aspen country.
The model reflects long-run patterns, not this year’s observations. A warm September, drought, or an early hard freeze can move peak by a week or more. For an important trip, check local reports the week before you go.
Independent
Leaves.com isn’t affiliated with any state tourism office, park, or government agency, and destination pages don’t endorse any business.
Data and credits
State boundaries come from U.S. Census Bureau cartographic files, packaged by the open-source us-atlas project. Maps are drawn with the open-source D3 and TopoJSON libraries. Town and ZIP code locations come from a free public ZIP code database distributed in the open-source zipcodes package. Text, leaf illustrations, and the forecast model are original to Leaves.com. The typeface is Bricolage Grotesque, used under the SIL Open Font License. Full license notices are in licenses.txt.
Get in touch
Questions, corrections, or partnership ideas? Contact us.