FrostDateCheck

Charleston, SC 29407 Frost Dates

29407, near Charleston, SC: the frost window

Zone 9a

The last spring frost here typically falls around 02/04, about 160 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/30, roughly 321 days after the last spring frost.

Charleston sits in USDA Zone 9a (20 to 25°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

Charleston's growing season runs out in roughly 18 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 Charleston's last frost

02/04 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/05 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Charleston against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 321 frost-free days, Charleston places 3,289 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within SC, it ranks 2 of 519.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 29407: the frost range, on how to read the range around Charleston's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Charleston can differ from the 29407 normal.