Bath, ME 04576 Frost Dates
04576, near Bath, ME: the frost window
Around 04/28 is the usual last spring frost, about 243 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 175 days after the last spring frost.
Bath 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
Bath's growing season runs out in roughly 8 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/28 isn't a guarantee
04/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Bath against the rest of the dataset
About 175 days separate Bath's last and first frost, putting it 26,838 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within ME, it ranks 62 of 456.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 04576: the frost range, on how to read the range around Bath's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Bath can differ from the 04576 normal.