Amesbury, MA 01860 Frost Dates
01860, near Amesbury, MA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/01, roughly 246 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 163 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Amesbury, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Amesbury'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 Amesbury's last frost
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/20 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Amesbury against the rest of the dataset
Amesbury's growing season runs about 163 days, ranking 31,342 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within MA, it ranks 445 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 01860: the frost range, on how to read the range around Amesbury's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Amesbury can differ from the 01860 normal.