Sussex, NJ 07461 Frost Dates
07461, near Sussex, NJ: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/01, roughly 246 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 164 days after the last spring frost.
Sussex sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Sussex's growing season runs out in roughly 6 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
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/19 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Sussex against the rest of the dataset
About 164 days separate Sussex's last and first frost, putting it 30,996 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NJ, it ranks 900 of 906.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 07461: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Sussex's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Sussex's dates instead of trusting one.