Bel Air, MD 21162 Frost Dates
21162, near Bel Air, MD: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/24, roughly 208 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/21, roughly 244 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8a (10 to 15°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 Bel Air, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Bel Air's growing season runs out in roughly 12 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 Bel Air's last frost
03/24 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/08 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Bel Air against the rest of the dataset
Bel Air's growing season runs about 244 days, ranking 8,226 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within MD, it ranks 54 of 583.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 21162: the frost range, on how to read the range around Bel Air's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Bel Air can differ from the 21162 normal.