Raleigh, NC 27656 Frost Dates
Raleigh, NC: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/28, roughly 212 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/08, roughly 229 days after the last spring frost.
Raleigh 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 Raleigh's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Raleigh's last frost
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 10,522 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 263 of 1,078.
Learn more
Before leaning on 27656's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Raleigh can differ from the 27656 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8a and Raleigh's frost date answer different questions.