Beaufort, NC 28589 Frost Dates
28589, near Beaufort, NC: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/10, roughly 194 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/01, roughly 265 days after the last spring frost.
Beaufort sits in USDA Zone 8b (15 to 20°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Beaufort's growing season runs out in roughly 14 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
03/10 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/26 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Beaufort against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 265 frost-free days, Beaufort places 5,988 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 34 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28589: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Beaufort's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Beaufort's dates instead of trusting one.