South River, NJ 08816 Frost Dates
08816, near South River, NJ: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/17, roughly 232 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/23, roughly 190 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 7a (0 to 5°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for South River, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
South River's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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 South River's last frost
04/17 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/06 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
South River against the rest of the dataset
South River's growing season runs about 190 days, ranking 21,068 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NJ, it ranks 551 of 906.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 08816: the frost range, on how to read the range around South River's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in South River can differ from the 08816 normal.