Spencer, TN 38585 Frost Dates
38585, near Spencer, TN: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/07, roughly 222 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/30, roughly 203 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 Spencer, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Spencer's growing season runs out in roughly 9 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 Spencer's last frost
04/07 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/20 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/23 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Spencer against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 203 frost-free days, Spencer places 16,946 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TN, it ranks 509 of 770.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 38585: the frost range, on how to read the range around Spencer's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Spencer can differ from the 38585 normal.