FrostDateCheck

Baltimore, MD 21273 Frost Dates

21273, near Baltimore, MD: the frost window

Zone 8a

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.

Baltimore sits in USDA Zone 8a (10 to 15°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

Baltimore'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 Baltimore'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.

Baltimore against the rest of the dataset

Baltimore's growing season runs about 244 days, ranking 8,176 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within MD, it ranks 45 of 583.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 21273: the frost range, on how to read the range around Baltimore's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Baltimore can differ from the 21273 normal.