Week 4 UP Fall Color Report 2023

50-70% increase in color from last week

Well the summer is coming to an end and you can start to feel it now with a little more rain and some cooler evenings this last week. Winds are also starting to pick up again, but things still remain really dry, and this week we are seeing more color up to 70% more color than last week at this time. The weekly UP Color Change Map will get more detailed each week now through peak color. You can’t help but notice the changes now especially across the Western UP, Copper Country, and Keweenaw.

Looking over previous years, we are really far ahead on color change up to 10 days ahead in the aforementioned areas for sure. Don’t sleep on fall color progression this season. You have about a 2 week window where you will have decent color but only 2-4 days for peak once it hits, and if there are some strong winds and heavy rainstorms that knock the leaves off the trees you could be seeing a lot of bare spots.

A little tip is once you start seeing color getting into the 60-70% range for a region that means peak color is 7-10 days out. Areas along Lake Superior and far eastern UP and southern UP can be closer to the 10days out after hitting 70% sometimes. Even 70% color is still really colorful. If color starts reaching 80-90% color you should be on the way and no later than 2-4 days otherwise the colors really start fading and tree tops start loosing their leaves. You will still have some nice color, even past peak can have its beauty and that is where the understory really starts to look beautiful as the leaves start turning golden yellow and lots of leaves on the ground making for some beautiful back roads adventures. Leaves crunching under your feet as you go hiking, anyone?

Don’t be shocked this year if we start seeing 80%-peak color in places by Sept 17th through Sept 25th. A couple years ago we were hitting peak color in places by Sept 22nd, and this year we are ahead of that year in color progression. I am afraid this season if you wait until Oct 3th to 10th you’ll be left with all the leaves on the ground. The latest I see peak color happening is Sept 24th-30th. The way things have progressed to date I’m projecting the best color will be Sept 20th to about Sept 27th, even with some nice rainfall and our more normal overcast skies moving into Sept.

Take a road trip across the UP, do a big loop, hit some places that color is reaching 60-70% and visit some places that are in the 80-90% color range, and by the time your trip is over on the way back you’ll see peak color. Take a week to see the Upper Peninsula during the fall, the best fall colors you’ll ever see. Go on a hike, a drive, take in the views from an overlook, or go driving down back roads and experience the beauty of fall.

Videos of drives this past week across the Upper Peninsula - they are in timewarp 30x speed, when you are on Youtube you can select to slow the speed down in the Youtube player, at anytime you can pause and scroll pack also. This is a new thing I am adding this year for the fall color updates so I will see how everyone likes it. This first week I will make the videos viewable for all, then moving forward they will appear in the paid subscriber portions of the posts.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRrKdkftQglsJe6DsnMaDDzcES3zU8Nrl

Driving Stats

Week 4: Miles driven: 945mi - 68gal of gas

Weeks 1-4: Miles driven 2,645mi - 194 gal of gas

---

If you aren’t already a premium subscriber to the Yooper Report, please consider doing so as it helps to put gas in the tank so I can continue to provide this resource each fall.

—Yooper Steve

instagram.com/yoopersteve - instagram.com/funintheup

youtube.com/funintheup - youtube.com/tourdayoop - youtube.com/yoopersteve

---

UpperPeninsulaTours.com - Yooper Steve Guided Adventures away from the crowds

USE CODE: FALL23 to save 10% valid through Oct 15th, 2023.

---

Detailed UP Fall Color Report below.