Lowell, MA 03076 Frost Dates
03076, near Lowell, MA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/03, roughly 248 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/08, roughly 156 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 Lowell, not a forecast for this year.
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
05/03 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/24 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.
Lowell against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 156 frost-free days, Lowell places 33,491 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MA, it ranks 600 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 03076: the frost range, on how to read the range around Lowell's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Lowell can differ from the 03076 normal.