FrostDateCheck

Rutland, VT 05765 Frost Dates

05765, near Rutland, VT: the frost window

Zone 5a

Around 05/15 is the usual last spring frost, about 260 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/27, roughly 132 days after the last spring frost.

Rutland 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

Rutland'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.

The actual range around Rutland's last frost

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.

Rutland against the rest of the dataset

Rutland's growing season runs about 132 days, ranking 38,174 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within VT, it ranks 271 of 330.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 05765: local microclimates, on what one yard in Rutland can differ from the 05765 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Rutland's frost date answer different questions.