Paris Alston: This is GBH’s Morning edition. It’s September, which means kids are back in school. Pumpkin spice is all the rage again. And summer is winding down. It’s time to get excited for fall. And this year is shaping up to be a good one, with forecasters predicting bold colors coming to the trees in just a few weeks.

Jeremy Siegel: If you are planning on leaf peeping this year, meteorologist Dave Epstein joins us now to talk about where and when to catch the best fall colors. Good morning Dave.

Dave Epstein: You know, there’s a few things I like to talk about. I have some pretty strong feelings about leaf peeping. So.

Siegel: Let’s hear 'em. Strong feelings. Okay.

Epstein: Okay. So my strongest feeling is I think 'peak’ is kind of nonsense because it really comes in waves. Because all of our trees — you know, the forests in New England are made up of different trees. So you get a wave of when the maples and maybe the beeches and then the hickories and the ashes and the oaks. So we get waves of color. And when you see 'peak,' there’s no more green and you’ve already got some leaf drops. So the palette isn’t quite as variety once you get to peak. So I don’t even like to think about peak. I like to think about sort of weekends to go to these different areas. And the first weekend I would say is the weekend around the 21st of September, far northern Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. That’s where it will all begin.

Siegel: What are the first pops of color that we’re going to be seen around that time?

Epstein: Yeah. So we’ll see the maples will change first, the red maples, the sugar maples, a lot of those begin to change. If you’re seeing color already, like even driving around here in southern New England, you might notice the tree where the leaves are changing or even dropping. That tree is under stress from either disease, or perhaps it could be an area where it’s not getting enough water, or it’s a little bit of both. But in general, we don’t see the real color around here until the second and third and even fourth weekend of October.

Alston: So with that, Dave, I know a lot of folks around here are probably going to be driving the Kancamagus highway, maybe even going to Blue Hills a little closer to home. When can we see peaks in those areas?

Epstein: Yeah. So I think that the places to go in northern New England will be that final weekend of September, the first weekend of October, into northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire. You get up to Coös County [in New Hampshire], central western Maine in those areas, and then it basically meanders south. We get towards Indigenous Peoples Weekend, then we’re closer to southern New England, the Berkshires. You get into the Worcester Hills, and then the weekend after that you get into Greater Boston, Metro West, and finally around Halloween, Boston points south tend to see more of their color at that point.

Siegel: How is what we’re expecting to see for leaves this year with fall foliage different than what we saw in 2023?

Epstein: Yeah, so every year there’s fall foliage. Every year there’s amazing color. Some years are just a little more muted than others. Last year we had all that rain. We had more fungus on the leaves, so colors were more muted as they changed. This year we’ve had kind of more average precipitation. I looked as long as we have kind of lots of sunshine, mild warm days, cool-ish nights, no tropical systems, no big storms. The foliage is going to be, I think, very good to perhaps even excellent. And the interesting thing a lot of people don’t realize: the reds are actually made. They’re not present yet. They will be made with the cooler weather. And that’s why a lot of sunshine with warm days and cool nights is so important, because you get more reds, anthocyanins, those get produced. So it should be a better season than last year in terms of the vibrancy of the leaves changing. But every year there’s always good color.

Siegel: Come for the forecast. Stay for these strong opinions on leaf peeping. That is GBH meteorologist Dave Epstein in peak form today. Thanks so much, Dave.

Alston: Thank you. You’re listening to GBH news.

People planning their leaf peeping around forecasts for “peak foliage” dates may be looking for the wrong thing.

“My strongest feeling is I think 'peak’ is kind of nonsense because it really comes in waves,” GBH’s meteorologist Dave Epstein told Morning Edition. “The forests in New England are made up of different trees. So you get a wave of ... the maples and maybe the beeches and then the hickories and the ashes and the oaks. So we get waves of color. And when you see 'peak,' there’s no more green and you’ve already got some leaf drops. So the palette isn’t quite as variety once you get to peak.”

Leaves change every year, but how brilliant their colors are and how long seasons last depends on weather conditions, Epstein said.

“Some years are just a little more muted than others,” he said. “Last year we had all that rain. We had more fungus on the leaves, so colors were more muted as they changed. This year we’ve had kind of more average precipitation.”

What to hope for, he said, is lots of sunshine, mildly warm days, cool nights, and no big storms that will knock leaves off trees.

While there are some leaves changing color and falling around Boston as early as the first week of September, that’s not actually fall foliage, he said: It’s an indication that a tree is stressed from disease, isn’t getting enough water, or some combination of both.

“In general, we don’t see the real color around here until the second and third and even fourth weekend of October,” Epstein said.

Instead of chasing the mythical peak, seek weeks when leaves will be bright and varied, he said.

“The first weekend I would say is the weekend around the 21st of September, far northern Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine. That’s where it will all begin,” he said. “I think that the places to go in northern New England will be that final weekend of September, the first weekend of October, into northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire.”

After that, colors will hit Coös County in New Hampshire and central western Maine.

“And then it basically meanders south,” he said. “We get towards Indigenous Peoples Weekend, then we’re closer to southern New England, the Berkshires. You get into the Worcester Hills, and then the weekend after that you get into Greater Boston, Metro West, and finally around Halloween, Boston points south tend to see more of their color at that point.”

Happy leaf peeping.