Morehead City, NC 28557 Frost Dates
28557, near Morehead City, NC: the frost window
Around 03/18 is the usual last spring frost, about 202 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/21, roughly 249 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Morehead City in Zone 8b (15 to 20°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
Morehead City's growing season runs out in roughly 12 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 Morehead City's last frost
03/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/26 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/05 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Morehead City against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 249 frost-free days, Morehead City places 7,617 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 47 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28557: the frost range, on how to read the range around Morehead City's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Morehead City can differ from the 28557 normal.