WYSIWYG

Several map makers create maps purporting to forecast fall color. Few do it accurately.

On California Fall Color, what you see is what you get. We only post what has been observed, as reported to us by a network of some 100 volunteer “color spotters.”

That takes time and patience, but it is accurate. You can trust that what we report is peaking, truly is. We only report what is being seen and base any forecast on actual current observations and documented historical record.

Explore Fall, a new autumn-centric website has created a computer model based on “gridded temperature, precipitation and daylight data” that they claim is “accurate within three days, 80% of the time.” However, the map they provided to the San Francisco Chronicle today wasn’t 10% accurate within 30 days. 

Yosemite will not begin showing fall color until the first to second week of October, when a non-native Eastern sugar maple peaks near the Yosemite Chapel (last year, this lone tree peaked on Oct. 4). A week or two later, bigleaf maple and dogwood will begin coloring yellow and pink along the banks of the Merced River and will peak in late October.

Yosemite Valley’s show will culminate in November, when deep-orange black oak flame out among its meadows.

Yet, Explore Fall forecasts Yosemite to peak on Oct 2 and that the Eastern Sierra will be past peak by then. Nonsense.

Such guesses aren’t even close to what really happens. Computer models may be useful in other locales where fall color is unpredictable, but to forecast when and where color will peak anywhere in California, combine what CFC.com is now reporting with past reports (see “Reports By” at right).

The combination of current observation with what happened in prior years provides the most accurate way to find glorious fall color in The Golden State. 

Though we love technology in California, we also know its limitations. Forecasting fall color is  one of them. You need people on the ground to know when and where it will peak.