The Last Spring Freeze Date in North Georgia
With Spring officially arriving tonight, and the weather warming up, it’s time to start thinking about planting outdoors. There are two weather-related things to keep in mind before you run out to the garden center to pick up those summer annuals.
The first is the last freeze date. You don’t want those newly planted flowers to freeze. For Georgia, the last frost date ranges from March 20th along a line from Columbus to Macon to Augusta to April 20th up in the mountains of Northeast Georgia near Clayton. According to the Weather Service, metro Atlanta to Athens has its last freeze sometime between March 30th and April 10th.
In reality, though, the last time Atlanta had a spring freeze in April was back in 2000, and before that, you have to go back to 1992. There have been a number of freezes in late March, however. In addition, Atlanta tends to be a bit warmer than the suburban counties, so the actual last freeze date would be a bit later here.
In addition to thinking about the last freeze, consider the soil temperature before you plant. Most annuals won’t grow much until the soil temperature remains above 60 degrees, and some plants, prefer temperatures above 70. I keep track of the soil temperature with a probe about 6 inches down in my backyard. A graph of the temperature is below:
The image above is live, and as I look at it, I see the soil temperature reached 56 degrees during last week’s warm spell, then dropped to 48 over the chilly weekend. It’s now on the way back up. So, as of today, it’s still too early to plant, even if you were positive we weren’t going to see any below 32 degree weather. When you see the temperature above 60 and staying there, that’s a pretty good indication that it’s safe to plant.
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