Raleigh, NC 27627 Frost Dates
Raleigh, NC: when does the frost end?
Around 03/28 is the usual last spring frost, about 212 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/08, roughly 229 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8a (10 to 15°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Raleigh, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 10 weeks until Raleigh's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
03/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/08 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.
Raleigh against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 229 frost-free days, Raleigh places 10,515 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 256 of 1,078.
Learn more
Before leaning on 27627's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Raleigh can differ from the 27627 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8a and Raleigh's frost date answer different questions.