Roanoke, VA 24003 Frost Dates
24003, near Roanoke, VA: the frost window
Around 04/03 is the usual last spring frost, about 218 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/01, roughly 210 days after the last spring frost.
Roanoke 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
Roanoke's growing season runs out in roughly 9 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 Roanoke'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.
Roanoke against the rest of the dataset
About 210 days separate Roanoke's last and first frost, putting it 14,931 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within VA, it ranks 390 of 1,178.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 24003: the frost range, on how to read the range around Roanoke's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Roanoke can differ from the 24003 normal.