Pittsfield, MA 01260 Frost Dates
01260, near Pittsfield, MA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/07, roughly 252 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/03, roughly 147 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Pittsfield, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Pittsfield's growing season runs out in roughly 5 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 Pittsfield's last frost
05/07 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/26 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/21 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Pittsfield against the rest of the dataset
Pittsfield's growing season runs about 147 days, ranking 35,847 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within MA, it ranks 673 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 01260: local microclimates, on what one yard in Pittsfield can differ from the 01260 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Pittsfield's frost date answer different questions.