Clifton Forge, VA 24474 Frost Dates
24474, near Clifton Forge, VA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/27, roughly 242 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/18, roughly 172 days after the last spring frost.
Clifton Forge sits in USDA Zone 7a (0 to 5°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
Clifton Forge's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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 Clifton Forge's last frost
04/27 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Clifton Forge against the rest of the dataset
About 172 days separate Clifton Forge's last and first frost, putting it 28,298 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within VA, it ranks 1,120 of 1,178.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 24474: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Clifton Forge's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Clifton Forge's dates instead of trusting one.