Sykesville, MD 21163 Frost Dates
21163, near Sykesville, MD: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/02, roughly 217 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/07, roughly 220 days after the last spring frost.
Sykesville sits in USDA Zone 7b (5 to 10°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
Sykesville's growing season runs out in roughly 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/02 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/20 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Sykesville against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 220 frost-free days, Sykesville places 12,803 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MD, it ranks 178 of 583.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 21163: the frost range, on how to read the range around Sykesville's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Sykesville can differ from the 21163 normal.