Whitehall, NY 12861 Frost Dates
12861, near Whitehall, NY: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 164 days after the last spring frost.
Whitehall 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
Whitehall'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.
Why 04/30 isn't a guarantee
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Whitehall against the rest of the dataset
About 164 days separate Whitehall's last and first frost, putting it 30,972 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NY, it ranks 908 of 1,951.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 12861: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Whitehall's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Whitehall's dates instead of trusting one.