Amesbury, MA 03848 Frost Dates
03848, near Amesbury, MA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/30, about 245 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/11, roughly 162 days after the last spring frost.
Amesbury sits in USDA Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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
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.
Why 04/30 isn't a guarantee
04/30 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
At roughly 162 frost-free days, Amesbury places 31,667 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MA, it ranks 489 of 712.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 03848: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Amesbury's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Amesbury's dates instead of trusting one.