Richmond, VA 23249 Frost Dates
Richmond, VA: when does the frost end?
Around 04/03 is the usual last spring frost, about 218 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/04, roughly 215 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 7b (5 to 10°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 Richmond, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 10 weeks until Richmond's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
Why 04/03 isn't a guarantee
04/03 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/19 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Richmond against the rest of the dataset
About 215 days separate Richmond's last and first frost, putting it 13,969 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within VA, it ranks 360 of 1,178.
Learn more
Before leaning on 23249's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 7b and Richmond's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Richmond's dates instead of trusting one.