Barnstable Town, MA 02642 Frost Dates
02642, near Barnstable Town, MA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/13, roughly 228 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/04, roughly 206 days after the last spring frost.
Barnstable Town sits in USDA Zone 7b (5 to 10°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
Barnstable Town's growing season runs out in roughly 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/13 isn't a guarantee
04/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/26 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Barnstable Town against the rest of the dataset
About 206 days separate Barnstable Town's last and first frost, putting it 15,936 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MA, it ranks 61 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 02642: local microclimates, on what one yard in Barnstable Town can differ from the 02642 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7b and Barnstable Town's frost date answer different questions.