FrostDateCheck

Berlin, NH 03860 Frost Dates

03860, near Berlin, NH: the frost window

Zone 5a

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/07, roughly 252 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/05, roughly 150 days after the last spring frost.

Berlin 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

Berlin's growing season runs out in roughly 5 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

05/07 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/27 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Berlin against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 150 frost-free days, Berlin places 35,264 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NH, it ranks 128 of 260.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 03860: local microclimates, on what one yard in Berlin can differ from the 03860 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Berlin's frost date answer different questions.