FrostDateCheck

Syracuse, NY 13120 Frost Dates

13120, near Syracuse, NY: the frost window

Zone 6a

Around 04/29 is the usual last spring frost, about 244 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Syracuse in Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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

Syracuse's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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 Syracuse's last frost

04/29 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Syracuse against the rest of the dataset

About 173 days separate Syracuse's last and first frost, putting it 27,671 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NY, it ranks 618 of 1,951.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 13120: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Syracuse's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Syracuse's dates instead of trusting one.