Worcester, MA 01543 Frost Dates
01543, near Worcester, MA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/12, about 257 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/01, roughly 141 days after the last spring frost.
Worcester 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
Worcester'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 Worcester's last frost
05/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/27 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/28 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Worcester against the rest of the dataset
About 141 days separate Worcester's last and first frost, putting it 36,858 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MA, it ranks 699 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 01543: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Worcester's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Worcester's dates instead of trusting one.