Poultney, VT 05732 Frost Dates
05732, near Poultney, VT: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/15, roughly 260 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/27, roughly 132 days after the last spring frost.
Poultney 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
Poultney's growing season runs out in roughly 4 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
05/15 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.
Poultney against the rest of the dataset
About 132 days separate Poultney's last and first frost, putting it 38,207 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within VT, it ranks 274 of 330.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 05732: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Poultney's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Poultney's dates instead of trusting one.