Cape Charles, VA 23443 Frost Dates
23443, near Cape Charles, VA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/28, roughly 212 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/17, roughly 234 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Cape Charles in Zone 8b (15 to 20°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Cape Charles'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 Cape Charles's last frost
03/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Cape Charles against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 234 frost-free days, Cape Charles places 9,767 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within VA, it ranks 85 of 1,178.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 23443: local microclimates, on what one yard in Cape Charles can differ from the 23443 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Cape Charles's frost date answer different questions.