Northampton, MA 01060 Frost Dates
01060, near Northampton, MA: the frost window
Around 05/02 is the usual last spring frost, about 247 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/09, roughly 160 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Northampton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Northampton's growing season runs out in roughly 6 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
The actual range around Northampton's last frost
05/02 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/21 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Northampton against the rest of the dataset
About 160 days separate Northampton's last and first frost, putting it 32,240 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MA, it ranks 528 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 01060: local microclimates, on what one yard in Northampton can differ from the 01060 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Northampton's frost date answer different questions.