West Cape May, NJ 08251 Frost Dates
08251, near West Cape May, NJ: the frost window
Around 04/01 is the usual last spring frost, about 216 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/09, roughly 222 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts West Cape May in Zone 8a (10 to 15°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
West Cape May's growing season runs out in roughly 10 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 West Cape May's last frost
04/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/19 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
West Cape May against the rest of the dataset
About 222 days separate West Cape May's last and first frost, putting it 12,289 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NJ, it ranks 257 of 906.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 08251: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and West Cape May's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around West Cape May's dates instead of trusting one.