Beech Mountain, NC 28692 Frost Dates
28692, near Beech Mountain, NC: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/06, roughly 251 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/14, roughly 159 days after the last spring frost.
Beech Mountain sits in USDA Zone 7a (0 to 5°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
Beech Mountain's growing season runs out in roughly 7 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 05/06 isn't a guarantee
05/06 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/22 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/23 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Beech Mountain against the rest of the dataset
Beech Mountain's growing season runs about 159 days, ranking 32,717 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NC, it ranks 1,063 of 1,078.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 28692: local microclimates, on what one yard in Beech Mountain can differ from the 28692 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Beech Mountain's frost date answer different questions.