FrostDateCheck

Spring Lake, NC 28308 Frost Dates

28308, near Spring Lake, NC: the frost window

Zone 8a

The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/30, about 214 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/10, roughly 227 days after the last spring frost.

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Spring Lake 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

Spring Lake's growing season runs out in roughly 11 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 Spring Lake's last frost

03/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/09 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Spring Lake against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 227 frost-free days, Spring Lake places 10,988 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 341 of 1,078.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 28308: the frost range, on how to read the range around Spring Lake's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Spring Lake can differ from the 28308 normal.