“When are your leaves going to peak?”

The standard answer is that the fall foliage peaks in the Adirondack Park sometime within the last two weeks of September or the first two weeks of October. Yet, in the High Peaks region, leaves tend to peak earlier.

There are too many variables to predict an accurate time of peak foliage in any given location: elevation, weather, latitude, soil composition. What’s peak one day in Keene Valley or the Champlain Valley would probably be past peak in Lake Placid, which is at a higher elevation.

In 2016, Jim Carroll, a volunteer spotter and contributor to the New York Fall Foliage Report from the Tupper Lake/Mount Arab region, told the Lake Placid News, “I think the real key to a colorful year is more warm afternoons, cool nights and a frost here and there. It’s definitely up to Mother Nature.”

Carroll and his wife Regina Rockburn have been volunteer foliage spotters for Empire State Development’s I Love NY since the late 1990s. Rockburn said that — based on their weekly reports for more than 20 years — peak foliage season in the Tri-Lakes region of the Adirondacks is usually between Sept. 24 and 28.

This year, Rockburn said it’s been late. When the News spoke with her on Sept. 21, she was having trouble finding a lot of color.

This week, after several nights with lows in the 30s, those colors are now coming out fast, and New York’s Fall Foliage Report predicts near-peak foliage within the week. In the Olympic Region, those leaves are really on display this week … not peak yet but getting there.

Unfortunately — for everyone — there is no way to accurately predict peak foliage conditions anywhere in New York. What may look like peak one day could be even better the next day. Or the weather could turn nasty and the wind can blow many of the colorful leaves off the trees overnight. The best answer for the question “When is peak?” is “You’ll know it after it’s over.”