2022 MD Fall Foliage Peak Map: When Leaf Colors Are Best To View

MARYLAND — Fall won’t officially start until Sept. 22 with the autumnal equinox and leaves won’t change substantially in color in Maryland — or most places — until later in the season, but the 2022 Fall Foliage Prediction Map is a great tool to start planning leaf peeping tours.

David Angotti, an expert on statistics who lives in Tennessee, was in the property management business in 2013 when he created the first Fall Foliage Prediction Map for SmokyMountains.com to help visitors plan their vacations when autumn leaves are the most brilliant.

No predictive tool is 100 percent accurate, but using the interactive map released Tuesday can give you a pretty good shot at seeing autumn leaves when they turn their most striking colors.

In Maryland, the week of Oct. 24 looks good for a fall leaf viewing trip.

The Department of Natural Resources kicked off its fall foliage report this week. The sugar maples are just starting to turn yellow and the red maples are sporting color in Garrett and Allegany counties in far western Maryland.

Little color change is reported elsewhere in the state.

Tens of millions of people use the map every year to plan vacations, weddings and photography trips, but the most common use is by people who want to check out leaves closer to home.

“What started as a fun side project quickly became the most respected nationwide fall leaf map and one of the best fall resources in the country,” Angotti said in a news release.

This year, the data scientists will incorporate reports from map users to update the map late September. The backbone of the map is meteorology — temperature, moisture, sunlight and precipitation — but it incorporates historical and forecast data, including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration precipitation forecasts, elevation, actual temperatures, temperature forecasts and average daylight exposure to develop each county’s fall baseline date.

New maps are created every year.

For the second year, the map creators included the top places to see fall leaves in Maryland to help you plan leaf peering trips. Among them:

• Patapsco Valley State Park stretches 32 miles along the Patapsco River in Baltimore and Howard counties and offers some of the best autumn scenery in Maryland
• Elk Neck State Park located on a peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the Elk River combines colorful forests with sandy beaches for great viewing.
• Oregon Ridge Park near Cockeysville has hiking trails that showcase a tree-scape of yellow, orange and red.
• Other areas to visit close to the Baltimore-Washington metro area: Gwynnbrook Wildlife Management Area in Owings Mills, Baltimore County; Sugar Loaf Mountain Natural Resource Area in southern Frederick County; Seneca Creek State Park just southwest of Gaithersburg; and Dierssen Wildlife Management Area situated between the C&O Canal and the Potomac River in Montgomery County, offering first-rate opportunities for waterfowl watching and quiet interludes for strollers along the Canal Tow Path.

Once Angotti created the map for visitors to the Smokies, they then wanted to know about peak leaf peering times in other parts of Tennessee, so he decided to collect data for the entire country.

Map courtesy of SmokyMountains.com

To use the map, simply slide the scale to the right to see when leaves will peak in your state. Zero in on your county, and you'll be able to decide whether it's best to plan a northern, southern, eastern or western route.

Areas shaded in green have not begun to change color. As the season progresses, the map shows a progression of colors. When areas are shaded in brown, the leaves are past their peak.

There’s more than shorter days, longer nights and falling temperatures to signal to trees that it’s time to prepare for winter. The predictive map uses a complex algorithm that analyzes several million data points and spits out about 50,000 predictive data pieces.

This allows for a county-by-county forecast on the precise day the peak should occur. This year, the formula will get a midseason update in late September that will pull in the latest data to increase the accuracy and usefulness of the tool.

What Causes The Different Colors

You probably remember from science class that the color change all starts with photosynthesis. Leaves constantly churn out chlorophyll — a key component in a plant’s ability to turn sunlight into the glucose it needs to thrive — from spring through early fall. Those cells saturate the leaves, making them appear green to the human eye.

But leaves aren’t green at all. Autumn is the time for leaves’ big reveal: their true color, unveiled as chlorophyll production grinds to a halt. The colors in fall’s breathtaking tapestry are influenced by other compounds, according to the national park’s website.

Beta-carotene, the same pigment that makes carrots orange, reflects the yellow and red light from the sun and gives leaves an orange hue.

The production of anthocyanin, which gives leaves their vivid red color, ramps up in the fall, protecting and prolonging the leaf’s life on a tree throughout autumn.

And those yellows that make you feel as if you’re walking in a ray of sunshine?

They’re produced by flavonol, which is part of the flavonoid protein family. It’s always present in leaves but doesn’t show itself until chlorophyll production begins to slow.