Maple sugaring in Greene County, New York
- Sap starts
- Feb 16
- typical year
- Season ends
- Mar 26
- about 5 weeks
- Sap days / season
- 48.8
- 1991–2026 average
- Taps, 2022
- 1,723
- #47 of 50 in NY
Sap-flow outlook at Catskill right now
Full New York forecast →Forecast for Catskill, NY
Updated Oct 6, 8:37 AM EDT
No freeze-thaw days in the forecast
freeze thaw 32°F
- WedOct 735° / 67°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - ThuOct 851° / 72°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - FriOct 947° / 66°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SatOct 1046° / 67°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - SunOct 1147° / 69°
0h below · 24h above
No refreeze forecast - MonOct 1253° / 67°No refreeze forecast
Data: National Weather Service. Verdicts use freeze-thaw thresholds from maple field research; your woods may run a little differently.
When the sap runs
The sugaring calendar at Catskill
Year-to-year spread
- Opening signal
- Median Feb 20; the middle half of seasons fell between Feb 9 and Feb 25. Earliest Jan 16 (2023), latest Mar 10 (2015).
- Closing signal
- Median Mar 26; middle half between Mar 14 and Mar 30. Earliest Feb 20 (2023), latest Apr 12 (2015).
- Sap days by month
- Dec22%Jan17%Feb23%Mar29%Apr9%May0%
36 seasons of sap weather
Greene County seasons, 1991–2026
Maple production
Greene County in the Census of Agriculture
USDA counts maple operations every five years. In Greene County the 2022 Census found 11 farms making syrup (-15% since 2017), with taps -60% and syrup output -73% over the same five years. That works out to about 0.19 gallons of syrup per tap in 2022 (0.28 in 2017). Among the 385 counties in this atlas, Greene County ranks 259 by taps.
| Census year | Farms | Taps | Gallons of syrup | Gal / tap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 11 | 1,723 | 330 | 0.19 |
| 2017 | 13 | 4,362 | 1,237 | 0.28 |
Nearby
Neighboring maple counties
4 mi · Hudson, NY
Columbia County
Sap ~Feb 17 – Mar 26 · 14,953 taps
21 mi · Kingston, NY
Ulster County
Sap ~Feb 17 – Mar 26 · 13,631 taps
31 mi · Albany, NY
Albany County
Sap ~Feb 19 – Mar 27 · 11,925 taps
35 mi · Pittsfield, MA
Berkshire County
Sap ~Mar 5 – Apr 12 · 35,491 taps
36 mi · Poughkeepsie, NY
Dutchess County
Sap ~Feb 15 – Mar 24 · 22,265 taps
36 mi · Troy, NY
Rensselaer County
Sap ~Feb 19 – Mar 27 · 9,302 taps
About these numbers
The season dates are estimated from 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures for the PRISM 4-km grid cell at Catskill (92ft), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast: a sap day is an overnight low under 30.2 °F followed by an afternoon high over 37.4 °F. Each season's closing signal is the last sap day before accumulated warmth reaches a threshold, and the opening signal sits five weeks before that, never earlier than the first real freeze-thaw week. Tested against 117 state-seasons of USDA-reported dates, the rule lands within 5.5 days of the reported close and 6.6 days of the reported opening on average, and the typical dates shown here are scaled to New York's USDA record (12 years). Production figures are copied from the Census as published. Full method, calibration tables and the downloadable dataset →
Sources · 6
- 1.2022 Census of Agriculture, County Level Data — New York, Table 37: Maple Syrup, 2022 and 2017 · USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service
- 2.PRISM daily temperature grids (AN81d, 4 km), accessed 2026-10-05 · PRISM Group, Oregon State University, https://prism.oregonstate.edu
- 3.Applied Climate Information System (ACIS) web services · NOAA Regional Climate Centers
- 4.USDA NASS maple syrup reports — approximate average season opened and closed dates, 2011–2022 · USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (mirrored by the University of Vermont)
- 5.Sap flow in sugar maple: timing and weather drivers (Frontiers in Agronomy, 2025) · de Lima Santos et al.
- 6.GeoNames gazetteer (cities500), CC BY 4.0 · GeoNames
FAQ
Greene County sugaring questions
- When should I tap maple trees in Greene County, New York?
- In a typical year the sap starts running around February 16 near Catskill and the season winds down around March 26. Have your taps in a day or two before the first forecast string of freezing nights and 40 °F days. In the past 36 seasons the weather signal came as early as Jan 16 and as late as Mar 10.
- How much maple syrup does Greene County produce?
- The 2022 Census of Agriculture counted 11 maple operations in Greene County with 1,723 taps producing 330 gallons of syrup, ranking 47 of 50 New York's counties with published tap counts.
- How many sap days does Greene County get in a season?
- On average 48.8 freeze-thaw sap days from December through May at Catskill, of which about 17 are textbook days with a night in the 20s and a day in the 40s. The best season since 1991 was 2002 (65 sap days); the leanest was 2015 (30).
- Where do these dates come from?
- From 36 seasons of daily high and low temperatures at Catskill (PRISM 4-km grid), scored with the same freeze-thaw rule as our live forecast, then calibrated against USDA's reported season dates for New York. They describe a typical year at one point in the county; your sugarbush, slope and elevation can shift them by days.


