Hamilton, VA 20149 Frost Dates
20149, near Hamilton, VA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/16, roughly 231 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/25, roughly 189 days after the last spring frost.
Hamilton sits in USDA Zone 7a (0 to 5°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
Hamilton'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.
Why 04/16 isn't a guarantee
04/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/31 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/07 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Hamilton against the rest of the dataset
Hamilton's growing season runs about 189 days, ranking 21,690 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within VA, it ranks 888 of 1,178.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 20149: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Hamilton's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Hamilton's dates instead of trusting one.