Weather Tidbits: Average First Freeze Dates

This edition of Weather Tidbits will be discussing dates for the average first freeze across the different regions of the United States. A freeze date is the date where the minimum temperature drops to 32 degrees. The average is based on climatology. These dates are heavily dictated by elevation and latitude. Portions of the northern Rocky Mountains have an average first freeze date around late August to early September. The northern plains range from late September to early October. Much of the southern plains and the southeast region range from early November to late November. The gulf coast and nearly all of Florida have no recorded average first freeze dates. New England ranges from mid-September to late October. In Delmarva, the average first freeze across the eastern half of Delaware and Maryland’s lower shore as well as all of Virginia’s eastern shore is early November. Elsewhere on the peninsula, it’s late October.