Charlotte, NC 28243 Frost Dates
Frost dates for Charlotte, NC, ZIP 28243
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/30, roughly 214 days out. The first fall frost typically arrives around 11/03, about 221 frost-free days later.
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 Charlotte, not a forecast for this year.
What to do before the first frost
Zone 8a around Charlotte has about 10 weeks left before the first fall frost — that's the usual window to get a cold frame up if you want to keep harvesting past it.
The actual range around Charlotte's last frost
03/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 03/12 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 04/14 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.
How Charlotte compares
At roughly 221 frost-free days, Charlotte places 12,400 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 498 of 1,078.
Learn more
zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8a and Charlotte's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range explains how to read the range around Charlotte's dates instead of trusting one.