Any interest in checking out the fall foliage this time of year?
Regardless of whether youād like to explore your general region or perhaps plan a bigger sort of autumn trip, the website smokymountains.com wants to help.
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The 2021 Fall Foliage Map serves as the ultimate visual planning guide if youāre wondering about this yearās changing of the leaves.
āWhile no tool can be 100% accurate, (itās) meant to help travelers better time their trips to have the best opportunity of catching peak color each year,ā the website reads.
The site is a great resource, especially for those who have children or who are especially interested in exactly what happens this time of year. It offers coloring sheets for kids, an explanation on what happens to the fallen leaves each year and why leaves come down in the first place, and even the science behind it.
Hereās an example of what the country will likely look like in the coming week or so (this targets Oct. 4):
See that little key to the right of the U.S.? It shows what all the colors mean: Green is no change, light yellow means minimal change, solid yellow says patchy, orange is partial, red says near peak, maroon looks like peak and that almost brown-ish color indicates that weāre past peak.
Check out what the country might look like around Nov. 1:
You should play with the tool, by the way, especially if youāre planning a trip. You just drag the button side to side, and you can view the expected foliage situation for almost anywhere in the country.
Awesome.
This story was first published in 2019. It has since been updated.