Amherst Town, MA 01373 Frost Dates
01373, near Amherst Town, MA: the frost window
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.
Amherst Town 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
Amherst Town'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.
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.
Amherst Town against the rest of the dataset
About 160 days separate Amherst Town's last and first frost, putting it 32,225 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MA, it ranks 521 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 01373: local microclimates, on what one yard in Amherst Town can differ from the 01373 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Amherst Town's frost date answer different questions.