Jacksonville, NC 28544 Frost Dates
28544, near Jacksonville, NC: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/23, about 207 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/16, roughly 240 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8b (15 to 20°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 11 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
How much risk comes with planting early here
03/23 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/07 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Jacksonville against the rest of the dataset
Jacksonville's growing season runs about 240 days, ranking 8,667 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NC, it ranks 75 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28544: local microclimates, on what one yard in Jacksonville can differ from the 28544 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Jacksonville's frost date answer different questions.