Don't Leave Your Garden to Chance: Know Your Frost Dates

Here is an exciting new way for you to determine your last frost dates to ensure you are planting your garden at the right time for growing success in your location. Don’t leave it to chance!

Graphic by Green Thumb Weather

This new and innovative frost date tool is brought to you from Green Thumb Weather by a team of 3 meteorologists. Between the 3 of them, they have done weather forecasting for almost every climate on earth. They are all gardeners so you can rest assured that not only do they understand how important protecting your garden from the weather is, they have the experience to help you do the same. Keep reading to learn more about this awesome new weather app.

Green Thumb Weather is an interactive website that features frost dates in a way that you have never seen before, ultimately helping growers to make decisions about their gardens that save time and money. The creators of Green Thumb Weather seized on the opportunity to improve upon existing text-based frost date information on the web, which can be confusing, outdated, and sometimes just not very helpful. Spend some time on Green Thumb Weather and you can quickly tell the difference.


Green Thumb Weather uses the most accurate and comprehensive National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/National Climatic Data Center (NOAA/NCDC) dataset involving frost dates, and it is based on probabilities, which can sometimes be difficult to understand. NCDC is the part of NOAA that maintains the world's largest active archive of weather data. We take this dataset, combine it with the latest weather forecasts, and provide a clear picture of frost dates and current frost risk for over 4,700 locations across the United States.

Based on which part of the growing season you are currently in, the website customizes the display. For instance, during the period of time when the last frost typically occurs at your location, a stoplight chart uses red, yellow, and green colors and prominently indicates the frost risk in your area. You can click on the stoplight to see the reasons behind the color.

Additionally, forecast low temperatures for the week ahead are displayed giving you heads up of what to expect. Below that is the growing season timeline with a vertical red line indicating the current date, boxes that show what part of the growing season you are in now, and a look ahead to what is coming next. Click on any of the boxes for more detail and use the “add to calendar” feature to help you remember important dates on your digital garden calendar.

You can also get results for different temperature thresholds (default is 36°F) If you want to explore other locations, an interactive map will guide you to a different, nearby climate site.

Watch this brief video tutorial on how to use the interactive maps.


Not only do we provide details for specific locations across the United States, we also create interactive maps that give you an idea about growing seasons and frost dates across the country at a single glimpse. It is amazing to see how growing seasons differ from location to location.

Our goal is to provide weather and climate information that is relevant to gardeners in new, exciting, and most importantly useful ways. We invite any feedback and suggestions you may have and we will try to incorporate these into our products.

About the Developers of Green Thumb Weather: 

Shad Keene was born and raised on the East Coast and fondly remembers watching his grandfather tend to his garden in Virginia. He earned his Meteorology degree at Penn State University and his Master’s degree in Earth Science from Mississippi State University. He has forecast weather in all types of climates, ranging from the East Coast to Iraq, Thailand, and now the Pacific Northwest where he currently resides. He relishes spending time with his family and is passionate about soccer, gardening, surfing, and of course weather. 

Tom Wright is originally from Vashon Island WA, and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Washington. He has lived and forecasted weather in a variety of locations ranging from the wilds of Montana to the high plains of Kansas to the deep tropics in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Tom’s non-weather-related interests include sports, reading, and blogging. He also wrote his first novel, Dead Reckoning, in 2013, which is a post-apocalyptic thriller loosely based on his travels in the Pacific. Tom has two teenage children and currently lives, works, and tends a garden with his wife in Oregon. 

Kevin McGrath is originally from the Detroit MI area and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan and a Master’s degree in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma. His career has spanned from being a weather forecaster and IT manager in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to supporting America's space program and the National Weather Service as a research meteorologist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Kevin and his family currently reside in north Alabama and his hobbies include woodworking, gardening, photography, storm chasing, and technology.