Newbury, VT 03279 Frost Dates
03279, near Newbury, VT: the frost window
Around 05/12 is the usual last spring frost, about 257 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/06, roughly 146 days after the last spring frost.
Newbury sits in USDA Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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
Newbury'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
05/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/30 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/25 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Newbury against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 146 frost-free days, Newbury places 36,097 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within VT, it ranks 96 of 330.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 03279: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Newbury's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Newbury's dates instead of trusting one.