Emerald Isle, NC 28594 Frost Dates
28594, near Emerald Isle, NC: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/26, roughly 210 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/16, roughly 236 days after the last spring frost.
Emerald Isle 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
Emerald Isle'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
03/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/05 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Emerald Isle against the rest of the dataset
About 236 days separate Emerald Isle's last and first frost, putting it 9,429 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NC, it ranks 131 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28594: local microclimates, on what one yard in Emerald Isle can differ from the 28594 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Emerald Isle's frost date answer different questions.