Raleigh, NC 27690 Frost Dates
27690, near Raleigh, NC: the frost window
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.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Raleigh in Zone 8a (10 to 15°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Raleigh's growing season runs out in roughly 10 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 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 10,528 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 269 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 27690: the frost range, on how to read the range around Raleigh's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Raleigh can differ from the 27690 normal.