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Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Buffalo NY
1029 AM EDT Tue Sep 2 2025

...NWS offices serving New York and New England will conduct
an experiment this fall to improve services related to the
Frost/Freeze Program...

The National Weather Services (NWS) Frost/Freeze Program
consists of issuing Frost Advisories, Freeze Warnings, or
Hard Freeze Warnings when cold temperatures potentially
threaten tender vegetation and crops during the climatological
growing season. The growing season is defined by the period of
time between the median date of the last spring freeze and the
median date of the first fall freeze.

Currently, the ending of the issuance of Frost/Freeze headlines
for a season is based on the occurrence of a freeze in one
weather forecast zone or two weeks after the median first fall
freeze date. This approach was confusing to many users as
meteorological conditions often led to a patchwork approach of
ending the NWS frost/freeze program across multiple weather
forecast zones and NWS offices.

The NWS forecast offices serving New York and New England
(Burlington VT, Gray ME, Caribou ME, Boston MA, Albany NY,
Buffalo NY, Binghamton NY, and New York NY) will conduct an
experimental program service during the fall of 2025. The purpose
of this experimental program is to streamline the frost/freeze
program for simplified customer usability.

This experiment simplifies the season during which Frost/Freeze
headlines will be issued to include the entirety of the
climatologically defined growing season as well as the succeeding
10 days. The end of the frost/freeze program will not be brought
about during this experiment by a freeze actually occurring to
better account for users protective measures being effective at
preventing vegetation damage from an early frost or freeze.

The following are the climatologically defined median dates of a
first fall freeze and the end date of the frost/freeze program for
the fall season for all counties in the NWS Buffalo service area:

Median Date      Frost/Freeze           Forecast Zones
                 Program End Date

October 1        October 11             Allegany
                                        Cattaraugus
                                        Jefferson
                                        Lewis
October 11     October 21             Chautauqua
                                        Livingston
                                        Ontario
                                        Oswego
                                        Southern Erie
                                        Wyoming
October 21     October 31             Genesee
                                        Monroe
                                        Niagara
                                        Northern Cayuga
                                        Northern Erie
                                        Orleans
                                        Wayne


Again, our goal is to streamline the frost/freeze process, by using
defined closing dates, which should make it easier and aid in
planning decisions for our users.

A detailed handout with Median Last Spring and First Fall Freeze
climatology can be found at: https://www.weather.gov/media/buf/frostfreeze.pdf

If you have any questions or comments on this experiment, please
reach out to Michael Fries, Meteorologist in Charge, at
michael.j.fries@noaa.gov or call 716-565-3378.

$$