Jacksonville, NC 28540 Frost Dates
28540, near Jacksonville, NC: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/31, roughly 215 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/08, roughly 224 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 Jacksonville, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Jacksonville'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.
Why 03/31 isn't a guarantee
03/31 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/13 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Jacksonville against the rest of the dataset
Jacksonville's growing season runs about 224 days, ranking 11,725 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NC, it ranks 422 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28540: local microclimates, on what one yard in Jacksonville can differ from the 28540 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Jacksonville's frost date answer different questions.