Carthage, NC 28388 Frost Dates
28388, near Carthage, NC: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/25, about 209 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/14, roughly 235 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 Carthage, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Carthage'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 Carthage's last frost
03/25 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/06 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Carthage against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 235 frost-free days, Carthage places 9,607 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 147 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28388: local microclimates, on what one yard in Carthage can differ from the 28388 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Carthage's frost date answer different questions.