FrostDateCheck

McIntosh, AL 36556 Frost Dates

McIntosh, AL: when does the frost end?

Zone 8b

Around 03/18 is the usual last spring frost, about 202 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/12, roughly 239 days after the last spring frost.

Zone 8b (15 to 20°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 McIntosh, not a forecast for this year.

Stretching the season past the first frost

With roughly 11 weeks until McIntosh's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.

Why 03/18 isn't a guarantee

03/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/25 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/06 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

McIntosh against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 239 frost-free days, McIntosh places 8,905 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AL, it ranks 334 of 809.

Learn more

Before leaning on 36556's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in McIntosh can differ from the 36556 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8b and McIntosh's frost date answer different questions.