Lowell, MA 01852 Frost Dates
01852, near Lowell, MA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/10, roughly 164 days after the last spring frost.
Lowell sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Lowell'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.
The actual range around Lowell's last frost
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/19 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lowell against the rest of the dataset
About 164 days separate Lowell's last and first frost, putting it 30,806 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MA, it ranks 411 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 01852: local microclimates, on what one yard in Lowell can differ from the 01852 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Lowell's frost date answer different questions.