Fall Foliage Forecast · 2026
When will fall color peak in your county?
A day-by-day forecast of leaf color for all 21 New Jersey counties, modeled from latitude, elevation and this autumn’s actual temperatures and rainfall. Drag the timeline to watch the season move north→south, or switch to peak-timing to see when each county turns.
Each county is shaded by its projected peak date — cooler greens turn first in the northwest highlands, deeper reds last along the southern coast. Click any county for its full timing.
Color stage
Pick a county above — or tap it on the map — for its projected peak, baseline timing and this season’s weather anomalies.
All 21 counties — sortable ranking ▸
How this forecast works ▸
This is a modeled estimate, not a field observation. No one has walked these woods and counted leaves. It combines three things that drive fall color and updates daily.
1. Baseline timing — latitude & elevation
Fall color sweeps from north to south and from high ground to low. Each county’s baseline peak comes from its centroid latitude, nudged earlier for elevation (about 0.75° of latitude per 1,000 ft):
effLat = lat + 0.75 × (elev_ft / 1000)
peakDoy = 626.3 − 8.09 × effLat
That puts high, northern Sussex around mid-October and low, southern Cape May in early November.
2. This season’s weather
Cool nights speed the breakdown of chlorophyll; warm, wet spells delay it; drought stress pulls peak earlier and dulls the color. For each county we take this autumn’s nightly lows and rainfall since Sept. 1 from its nearest NOAA weather station and compare them against that station’s official 1991–2020 U.S. climate normal for the same window:
- Peak shifts about 1.2 days per °F of temperature anomaly (colder = earlier).
- A drought (>40% drier than normal) pulls peak 2 days earlier.
- A notably wet stretch (>40% wetter) pushes it 1 day later.
- The total weather shift is capped at ±7 days.
3. Color stage
The map colors each county by how many days a given date sits from its adjusted peak — from “No change” more than five weeks out to “Past peak” once leaves have dropped.
Limitations
- Tree species aren’t modeled. The oak-dominated Pine Barrens (Burlington, Ocean, Atlantic) color later and browner than northern sugar maples — expect those to run a bit behind the map.
- Mean county elevations are estimates.
- Baseline constants are anchored to plausible N.J. timing, not yet calibrated against a full season of field reports.