Northampton, MA 01066 Frost Dates
Northampton, MA: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/02, roughly 247 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/09, roughly 160 days after the last spring frost.
Northampton sits in USDA Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 6 weeks until Northampton's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
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
At roughly 160 frost-free days, Northampton places 32,243 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MA, it ranks 531 of 712.
Learn more
Before leaning on 01066's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 6a and Northampton's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Northampton's dates instead of trusting one.