Last Frost Date Pitt Meadows — April 11
Last frost date in Pitt Meadows: April 11. First frost: October 30. Between them, 201 frost-free days — 44 fewer than Surrey, which is 27 days earlier in spring and sits 15 km away.
Last frost date Pitt Meadows: April 11 on average. First fall frost: October 30. Frost-free period: 201 days. Surrey, 15 km west, publishes 245 days — a 44-day difference, about 6 weeks, because Pitt Meadows sits on the valley floor where cold air pools. Do not borrow Surrey's calendar. If you need a substitute, Abbotsford is 3 days away from Pitt Meadows and twice the distance. Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada 1991–2020 climate normals, station PITT MEADOWS (Climate ID 1106178), completeness code D — 1994-2017, 18 years, 2 missing.
❄️ Pitt Meadows at a glance
15 kilometres, 44 days
Pitt Meadows and Surrey are close enough to share a weather forecast and a regional planting guide. They do not share a growing season. Surrey's average last frost is March 15; Pitt Meadows' is April 11. Surrey's first fall frost is November 15; Pitt Meadows' is October 30. Add the two ends together and the difference is 44 days of frost-free season, on a drive of about twenty minutes.
That is the largest gap of its kind we have found between two places this close together anywhere in the country, and it is invisible from a regional calendar. “Lower Mainland” and “Metro Vancouver” are administrative words, not climatic ones.
The Lower Mainland is a gradient, not a zone
Every figure below is Environment and Climate Change Canada's published frost-free period for that place, read from this site's own registry at the moment this page rendered.
| Place | Last spring frost | First fall frost | Frost-free days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vancouver | March 15 | November 30 | 260 |
| Surrey | March 15 | November 15 | 245 |
| Burnaby | March 15 | November 15 | 245 |
| Chilliwack | April 7 | November 7 | 214 |
| Abbotsford | April 11 | November 1 | 204 |
| Pitt Meadows | April 11 | October 30 | 201 |
Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby and the rest come from ECCC's normals for their own stations; Pitt Meadows from station PITT MEADOWS (1106178). The spread across the table — roughly two months between the top and the bottom — is the whole reason this page exists.
Why the valley floor is colder than the coast
Cold air is denser than warm air, so on a clear, calm night it behaves like water: it slides off the slopes and settles in the lowest ground it can find. Pitt Meadows sits on the Pitt Polder, flat reclaimed bog on the Fraser floodplain at about 5 m elevation, with the Coast Mountains rising immediately north. There is nowhere lower for that air to go.
Surrey sits on an upland ridge, closer to the Strait of Georgia, where the same air keeps moving and the ocean moderates both ends of the season. The two effects compound: Pitt Meadows gets the pooling and less maritime moderation. This is why the substitution is so costly in both directions — a later spring and an earlier autumn, not one or the other.
It also means the local variation within Pitt Meadows is real. A raised bed against a south wall on the north side of town is a different proposition from an open field on the polder. The station figure describes the floodplain, which is where most of the growing happens.
If you must borrow a calendar, borrow Abbotsford's
Most planting calendars offer a handful of anchor cities, and Pitt Meadows is rarely one of them. The instinct is to pick the nearest name on the list. That instinct is wrong here, and the numbers say so plainly:
Surrey — 15 km away, 44 days different.
Abbotsford — 31 km away, 3 days different.
The useful question is not how far but what kind of ground. Abbotsford is twice the distance and sits on the same valley floor, drained by the same cold air, so its calendar transfers. Surrey is next door and sits on a different landform, so its calendar does not. Anywhere in Canada, when you are choosing a proxy for a place we do not cover, ask whether the two share their terrain before you ask whether they share a postcode.
What this means for planting
The practical shape of a Pitt Meadows season:
- Hardy crops — peas, spinach, radish, onion sets, potatoes — go in from late March, as they would elsewhere in the valley. Frost tolerance is the point of these crops.
- Tender crops — tomatoes, peppers, basil, squash, beans, cucumbers — wait for the second half of May. The April 11 average is the date frost has usually finished, not a safe planting date, and roughly half of years see a later one.
- Soil temperature does the deciding. A floodplain that pools cold air also warms slowly. A soil thermometer beats a calendar every time; direct-sown beans and cucumbers want 15 °C and up.
- The autumn is the reward. A October 30 first frost leaves a long tail for ripening and for a late succession of greens and roots — the part of the season a Prairie gardener would trade a great deal for.
Run your own dates through the frost calculator, which now carries Pitt Meadows, or check what is still worth sowing today with Can I Still Plant?.
The station, and what it actually measures
These dates come from the station Environment and Climate Change Canada publishes as PITT MEADOWS, Climate ID 1106178, at 49°12′N 122°41′W and 5 m elevation. Like most ECCC normals it is a composite: several successive stations threaded together because no single one ran for the whole reference period. All of the threads sit at Pitt Meadows — nothing from another part of the valley is folded in.
Read the years of record before quoting the figure. The frost elements rest on 1994-2017, 18 years, 2 missing — 75% of the possible observations, and ECCC's completeness code D. A full normal is 30 years with no gaps. ECCC's own guidance says a composite with 30 years and no missing years is more reliable than one with 15 years and 2 missing, and it publishes both under the same heading. This is a real, multi-year measurement; it is not a full normal, and the distinction belongs next to the number rather than in a footnote.
Hardiness zone: we do not publish one for Pitt Meadows
This page gives you a frost date and no hardiness zone, and the omission is deliberate. Natural Resources Canada is the only authority for a Canadian hardiness zone. We quote NRCan or we quote nobody — computing a zone from our own data would be original research a reader could easily mistake for an official figure, and borrowing Surrey's zone would repeat precisely the error this page exists to warn about.
Look it up yourself at planthardiness.gc.ca, which takes a municipality name or coordinates. It is worth remembering that the two numbers answer different questions in any case: a hardiness zone tells you what survives the winter, a frost date tells you when to plant in spring. Neither substitutes for the other.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the last frost date in Pitt Meadows?
The average last spring frost in Pitt Meadows is April 11, measured at the station ECCC calls PITT MEADOWS, Climate ID 1106178, in the 1991–2020 climate normals. The average first fall frost is October 30, and the published frost-free period is 201 days. One qualification travels with that figure: it rests on 18 years of record between 1994 and 2017 with 2 missing years, which is 75% of the possible observations, not a full 30-year normal. ECCC rates it completeness code D. It is a real, multi-year measurement and a weaker one than a full normal, and this page says so wherever the number appears.
Why is Pitt Meadows colder than Surrey when they are 15 km apart?
Because Pitt Meadows sits on the Pitt Polder — flat, low-lying former bog on the Fraser floodplain, ringed by the Coast Mountains to the north — and cold air behaves like water. On a clear, still night it drains downhill off the slopes and pools on the valley floor, where there is nowhere further down for it to go. Surrey sits on an upland ridge with the Strait a few kilometres west, so it gets neither the pooling nor the distance from the ocean. The result is 201 frost-free days in Pitt Meadows against 245 in Surrey: the same 15 km buys 44 days.
Can I use Surrey or Vancouver frost dates for Pitt Meadows?
No, and this is the single most expensive substitution available in the Lower Mainland. Surrey's average last frost is March 15 and Pitt Meadows' is April 11 — 27 days apart. A gardener working from Surrey's calendar sets tender plants out most of a month early, in the one part of the valley where cold air collects. On the autumn end the same mistake costs the other direction: Surrey's first frost is November 15, Pitt Meadows' is October 30. Across the season that is 44 days of growing that does not exist, or about six weeks.
Which nearby city's frost dates are safe to use for Pitt Meadows?
Abbotsford. It is 31 km away — twice as far as Surrey — and its frost-free season is 204 days against Pitt Meadows' 201, a difference of 3 days. Both sit on the valley floor rather than on the coastal ridge, and both share the same cold-air drainage. If you need a planting calendar and Pitt Meadows is not offered, Abbotsford is the honest substitute. Distance is the wrong thing to optimise for; what matters is whether the two places are the same kind of ground.
What hardiness zone is Pitt Meadows?
We do not publish one for Pitt Meadows, because we have not verified it. Natural Resources Canada is the only authority for a Canadian hardiness zone, and we quote NRCan or we quote nobody; computing a zone ourselves would be original research a reader could mistake for an official figure, and borrowing Surrey's would repeat exactly the mistake this page is about. Look it up directly at planthardiness.gc.ca, which accepts a municipality name or coordinates. Note that a hardiness zone and a frost date answer different questions anyway: a zone is about surviving winter, a frost date is about when to plant.
When can I plant tomatoes in Pitt Meadows?
Wait for the second half of May. The April 11 average last frost is the date by which frost has usually finished, not a safe planting date — half the years will see a later one, and tender crops want soil warmth as well as the absence of frost. On a floodplain that drains cold air, soil in an unraised bed warms slowly. Start tomatoes, peppers and basil indoors 6 to 8 weeks ahead, harden them off, and set them out around the third week of May. The compensation is the autumn: an October 30 first frost gives a long ripening tail most of Canada does not get.
Does the 201-day season mean Pitt Meadows has a short growing season?
Not at all — 201 frost-free days is a long season by any Canadian standard, and it is the local comparison that makes it look short. The Lower Mainland holds the longest seasons in the country: Vancouver publishes 260 days, Surrey and Burnaby 245, Chilliwack 214. Against a national picture where much of the Prairies runs 100 to 120 days, Pitt Meadows is generously supplied. The point of this page is not that Pitt Meadows is cold; it is that it is 44 days different from a neighbour 15 km away, and nothing in a regional planting calendar will tell you that.
Which station do these dates come from?
The station ECCC publishes as PITT MEADOWS, Climate ID 1106178, at 49°12'N 122°41'W and 5 m elevation — on the valley floor, which is the relevant fact. Like most ECCC normals it is a composite: several successive stations threaded together because no single one ran for the whole period, in this case including PITT MEADOWS CS. All of them sit at Pitt Meadows; nothing from another part of the valley is folded in. Any figure on this page can be re-checked at climate.weather.gc.ca using that Climate ID.
Related guides
Plan your 201 days
Pitt Meadows is in the frost calculator, the seed-starting calculator and Can I Still Plant — with its own dates, not Surrey's.
Open the frost calculator →