FrostDateCheck

Palmer Town, MA 01079 Frost Dates

01079, near Palmer Town, MA: the frost window

Zone 6a

Around 05/03 is the usual last spring frost, about 248 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/14, roughly 164 days after the last spring frost.

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Palmer Town in Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.

Stretching the season past the first frost

Palmer Town's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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 Palmer Town's last frost

05/03 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.

Palmer Town against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 164 frost-free days, Palmer Town places 30,874 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MA, it ranks 434 of 712.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 01079: the frost range, on how to read the range around Palmer Town's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Palmer Town can differ from the 01079 normal.