Richwood, WV 26261 Frost Dates
26261, near Richwood, WV: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/18, roughly 171 days after the last spring frost.
Richwood 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
Richwood'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 Richwood's last frost
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/14 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/17 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Richwood against the rest of the dataset
About 171 days separate Richwood's last and first frost, putting it 28,699 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within WV, it ranks 681 of 885.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 26261: the frost range, on how to read the range around Richwood's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Richwood can differ from the 26261 normal.