Photos: Fall colors popping in northern half of Minnesota, north of I-94

I went from the Mississippi River to the Red River of the North on Thursday to tape a Climate Cast in an ancient prairie. That’s from almost the Wisconsin line to almost the North Dakota line.

That drive should take about four hours, but right now, you could make it last an entire day. The fall colors were starting to burst — and at an incredibly fast pace — north of the Interstate 94 region. That color is especially noticeable once you get north of St. Cloud.

There are loads of legendary places in Minnesota to see the fall foliage pop. Here is an MPR story from last fall with the curated locations. Until late this week, almost all of the fall color pictures and video we’d see in Minnesota had been from the Lutsen area; that’s part of the Sawtooth Mountain range that runs parallel to the Lake Superior shoreline along Highway 1 in northeastern Minnesota.

Fall colors in northern Minnesota

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We think the next hot spot for soon-to-be-peak colors will be near Hibbing, Virginia and Grand Rapids. The Boundary Waters are also likely to start their best color within the next week. After that, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources believes Savanna Portage and Lake Bronson State Parks will have amazing color a little closer to Oct. 9.

Some of the best fall color will move into Central Minnesota by later next week. We’re looking at you folks in Fergus Falls, Moorhead, Park Rapids and Hinckley. Then around Oct. 13 and 14, St. Cloud will be near top form.

We’ve been saying that the Twin Cities will have peak color around Oct. 18-20 for quite a long time now, and that still looks to be the start of the best variety of reds, yellows and oranges. There is likely to be a strong cold front shortly thereafter. If that front holds its timing, that would wipe out a lot of dried leaves in northern Minnesota. Enjoy the fall colors before Halloween, because history says they may not last much longer.

While things got off to a slightly later start, we have largely caught up to typical timing in the last five days. With cold mornings all across the state, that gets the internal chemicals in leaves going. That then leads to a rapid change in color within a matter of days at this far north of latitudes.