Ludlow, VT 05153 Frost Dates
05153, near Ludlow, VT: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/16, roughly 261 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/29, roughly 136 days after the last spring frost.
Ludlow sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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
Ludlow'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 Ludlow's last frost
05/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 05/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/31 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Ludlow against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 136 frost-free days, Ludlow places 37,736 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within VT, it ranks 223 of 330.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 05153: local microclimates, on what one yard in Ludlow can differ from the 05153 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Ludlow's frost date answer different questions.