Portsmouth, VA 23703 Frost Dates
Portsmouth, VA: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/16, roughly 200 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/26, roughly 255 days after the last spring frost.
Portsmouth sits in USDA Zone 8b (15 to 20°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
With roughly 13 weeks until Portsmouth's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Portsmouth's last frost
03/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/26 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Portsmouth against the rest of the dataset
Portsmouth's growing season runs about 255 days, ranking 6,885 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within VA, it ranks 11 of 1,178.
Learn more
Before leaning on 23703's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8b and Portsmouth's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Portsmouth's dates instead of trusting one.