Morganton, NC 28647 Frost Dates
28647, near Morganton, 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 11/04, roughly 219 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 7a (0 to 5°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 Morganton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Morganton'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
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 04/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Morganton against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 219 frost-free days, Morganton places 12,974 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NC, it ranks 611 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28647: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Morganton's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Morganton's dates instead of trusting one.