Frost dates for Kyoto, Japan
Half of years have their last spring frost by April 4, but 1 year in 10 still frosts after April 15.
A frost date is really a percentile, here from 30 years (1991 to 2020) of a weather model’s daily lows near Kyoto: in about half of years a frost still comes after the median date. Both numbers are below, so you can choose the risk yourself.
The odds
Last spring frost
How often a frost still comes on or after each date.
- 1 year in 10
- April 15
- 1 year in 5
- April 12
- 3 years in 10
- April 7
- 2 years in 5
- April 4
- Half of years (the median)
- April 4
First fall freeze
- Half of years (the median)
- December 2
- Growing season
- about 242 days
- Hardiness zone nearby
- 8b, estimated from the weather model
Where these numbers come from
Modeled, not measured. No weather station stands behind these dates. They come from ERA5, a reconstruction of the world’s weather from 1991 to 2020 made by ECMWF, Europe’s medium-range weather forecasting agency, for the EU’s Copernicus program, and read here through Open-Meteo. They are the model’s daily lows for the point at 35.25, 135.75, 24 km (15 miles) from the center of Kyoto. A frost here means a low at or below 0 °C (32 °F).
A weather model sees the land in squares about 25 km (16 miles) across, so it can miss what sets one garden apart from the next: a frost hollow, a hillside, a lakeshore, a city’s own warmth. The Milpa planner reads these same numbers for a garden here and grades them A good hunch.
Cold air also pools in low ground on the clear, still nights when frost happens, so a hollow can freeze while a slope a few hundred feet away does not. No table can know that about your garden. Your own logged frosts eventually can.
Weather data by Open-Meteo.com, under CC BY 4.0. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information, 2026.
What can I plant here, and when? ›
Nearby cities
The nearest cities with a frost page here, and how their last-frost dates compare.
- Osaka, Japan, last frost by March 17
- Kōbe, Japan, last frost by March 17
- Nagoya, Japan, last frost by March 27
- Hiroshima, Japan, last frost by March 13
- Kawasaki, Japan, last frost by March 21
- Tokyo, Japan, last frost by March 21
Other cities in Japan.
- Fukuoka, Japan, last frost by March 5
- Sendai, Japan, last frost by March 5
- Sapporo, Japan, last frost by April 13