Chapel Hill, NC 27514 Frost Dates
Chapel Hill, NC: when does the frost end?
Around 03/29 is the usual last spring frost, about 213 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/05, roughly 222 days after the last spring frost.
Chapel Hill sits in USDA Zone 8a (10 to 15°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 10 weeks until Chapel Hill's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Chapel Hill's last frost
03/29 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/11 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Chapel Hill against the rest of the dataset
Chapel Hill's growing season runs about 222 days, ranking 12,191 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NC, it ranks 452 of 1,078.
Learn more
Before leaning on 27514's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Chapel Hill can differ from the 27514 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8a and Chapel Hill's frost date answer different questions.