Waterville, ME 04961 Frost Dates
04961, near Waterville, ME: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/13, roughly 258 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/30, roughly 138 days after the last spring frost.
Waterville sits in USDA Zone 4b (-25 to -20°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
Waterville'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.
The actual range around Waterville's last frost
05/13 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 05/27 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Waterville against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 138 frost-free days, Waterville places 37,358 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within ME, it ranks 365 of 456.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 04961: the frost range, on how to read the range around Waterville's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Waterville can differ from the 04961 normal.