Tupper Lake, NY 12922 Frost Dates
12922, near Tupper Lake, NY: the frost window
Around 05/18 is the usual last spring frost, about 263 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/28, roughly 132 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 4a (-30 to -25°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 Tupper Lake, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Tupper Lake'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.
Why 05/18 isn't a guarantee
05/18 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 06/02 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Tupper Lake against the rest of the dataset
About 132 days separate Tupper Lake's last and first frost, putting it 38,193 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NY, it ranks 1,887 of 1,951.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 12922: local microclimates, on what one yard in Tupper Lake can differ from the 12922 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 4a and Tupper Lake's frost date answer different questions.