Rural Retreat, VA 24318 Frost Dates
Rural Retreat, VA: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/09, roughly 254 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/06, roughly 150 days after the last spring frost.
Rural Retreat sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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 6 weeks until Rural Retreat's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
Why 05/09 isn't a guarantee
05/09 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/23 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/26 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Rural Retreat against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 150 frost-free days, Rural Retreat places 35,322 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within VA, it ranks 1,171 of 1,178.
Learn more
Before leaning on 24318's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Rural Retreat can differ from the 24318 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 6b and Rural Retreat's frost date answer different questions.