Richmond, VA 23261 Frost Dates
23261, near Richmond, VA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/03, roughly 218 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/04, roughly 215 days after the last spring frost.
Richmond 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
Richmond'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.
The actual range around Richmond's last frost
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 13,973 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within VA, it ranks 364 of 1,178.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 23261: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7b and Richmond's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Richmond's dates instead of trusting one.