Richmond, VA 23269 Frost Dates
23269, near Richmond, VA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/03, about 218 days from today. 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
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
Richmond's growing season runs about 215 days, ranking 13,974 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within VA, it ranks 365 of 1,178.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 23269: 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.