Fruit Trees for Erie, North East, Westfield and the Lake Erie Grape Belt, Pennsylvania and New York

On February 9, 1934, NOAA's Corry station read −30°F. The old Weather Bureau station in Erie, 27 miles away and about 750 feet lower, read −13°F the same day. That 17°F split shapes every choice about fruit trees for Erie, North East, Westfield and the Lake Erie grape belt: a narrow lake plain the lake keeps mild, and a plateau behind the escarpment that plans a zone colder or more.

The map runs from Lake City through Erie and North East to Westfield and Brocton on the lake plain, and over the plateau from Edinboro and Corry in Northwest Pennsylvania to Chautauqua Lake in Western New York. Type your address in the box on the map to get the number for your own place, and the list of what we sell that has come through it.

How to read this map

The big number is the 30-year planning low, the number our cold hardiness calculator uses, adjusted for the ground around your spot. It's a safe number to plan around, not a record. The MFTC zone is that number in half zones. The typical winter is an average year's coldest night, the kind of figure USDA's zones use, and the spring layer shows how much warmer or colder a spot runs than downtown Erie, our reference town, on a still, clear night at bloom.

Downtown Erie plans for −16°F, MFTC zone 5a, with a typical winter near 0°F. The middle of the map is −21°F, and half the growing ground plans between −23°F and −18°F. The warm end, zone 5b at −14°F, is the lake plain west of downtown toward Presque Isle (Kelso Woods, Stonegate, Eaglehurst), plus Fairfield on the Harborcreek shore and Orchard Beach in North East. The cold end is the plateau's valley floors: Clymer and Sherman −26°F, Sugar Grove −27°F and Chandlers Valley −30°F, the coldest named place we checked. Most of what we sell clears winter on the lake plain, so give the spring layer as much weight as the big number.

Why the map looks the way it does

The grape belt is three steps of ground. The lake plain, only 2 to 5 miles wide in Erie County, is a staircase of old glacial lake terraces, each ending in a steeper face on its lake side. Behind it the escarpment climbs to the Allegheny Plateau; in Erie County it tops out about 900 feet above the lake (Presque Isle Wine Cellars' figure), closer to the water there than anywhere east or west. Short, steep creeks like Elk, Mill, Sixteenmile and Chautauqua Creek drop north to the lake; south of the plateau's crest, everything drains to French Creek, Chautauqua Lake and the Allegheny.

The lake is why the plain is warm. The Lake Erie AVA record figures it lifts the year's lowest temperature about 15°F near shore, and NOAA station records agree: over 29 winters the Corry station ran a median 12°F colder than the old Weather Bureau station in Erie. Height isn't the main reason. The old Volusia station, on the plateau above Westfield and nearly 900 feet higher than the old Erie station, ran only 5°F colder over the 20 winters they shared. Corry sits in a valley 27 miles from Erie, and where the plateau rises close to shore, the lake's reach can stop as little as 3 miles inland.

The lake has a weak spot. It's the shallowest of the Great Lakes and the first to freeze, often locked in by January, and a frozen lake shelters nothing. Every big outbreak in these station records came between early January and early March. On February 16, 2015 the Erie airport read −18°F, the Dunkirk airport station on the New York lake plain −28°F and the Chandlers Valley station on the plateau −32°F, while the Union City filtration plant station, 1,240 feet up, read −20°F in the same cold snap.

On still nights most of the lake plain drains. The terraces step down to the water, and Presque Isle Wine Cellars credits the slope below the escarpment with good cold air drainage. The exceptions are the creek cuts and their mouths, where cold slides down and collects. Freeport, where Sixteenmile Creek meets the lake, reads 8°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom, while Freeport Heights, half a mile up on the terrace, reads the same as downtown.

Behind the escarpment, cold drains off the slopes and pools on the valley floors along French Creek, Conneauttee Creek and Chautauqua Lake, right where the towns are. Union City, Wattsburg and Clymer sit on their floors and plan for −25°F to −26°F. The Chandlers Valley station ran 15°F colder than the Erie airport in the January 2011 cold snap (−21°F against −6°F).

The escarpment face is the thermal belt. Mount Baldy, south of Westfield and 490 feet above its floor, plans for −15°F, zone 5b, and reads 8°F warmer than downtown Erie at bloom; Gospel Hill and Euclid Heights, east of the city, read 4°F warmer. On the plateau, Gibson Hill near Edinboro, 300 feet above its floor, plans 4°F warmer than town and reads 13°F warmer in spring.

Lake snow piles onto the high ground. Corry averages 117.5 inches, and in the 2021 to 2022 winter a spotter in Greenfield Township logged 151 inches to Erie's 61.4. Snow chills the air above it but keeps roots warm, and roots are a tree's weak link.

Erie and Millcreek

Erie faces Presque Isle Bay, 20 feet deep on average, behind the sand spit locals call the Peninsula. Downtown plans for −16°F, zone 5a, on gravelly soil, and the Bayfront −15°F. The warmest ground runs west toward Presque Isle: Greater Kahkwa plans for −15°F, and Kelso Woods, Stonegate, Eaglehurst and Glenruadh −14°F, zone 5b, among the warmest winter readings of any named places on the map. They sit near the lake on gentle ground that drains to it and read 2°F to 4°F warmer than downtown at bloom.

South of 38th Street the ground climbs toward the escarpment, and the hillsides are the best spring ground in town. Glenwood Knolls, Glenridge Hills and South Hills Estates, 180 to 210 feet above their floor, plan for −16°F to −17°F and read 3°F to 4°F warmer than downtown. Other spots run cold at bloom: Kearsarge reads 8°F colder, West Millcreek 7°F and Peach Street Terrace 6°F, though all plan within 3°F of downtown. Up near Millcreek's 1,170-foot high point, Belleview Heights plans for −19°F.

Everything we sell rated −20°F or colder clears the city, and the Chicago Hardy Fig (−10°F) is worth a try against a south wall in the −14°F and −15°F pockets. Put Redstar peach, Goldrich apricot and Bing and Stella cherries on the hillsides. Save Kearsarge and spots like it for apples like Northern Spy and Liberty, honeyberries and currants.

Harborcreek and North East

East of the city, Lawrence Park plans for −16°F, Wesleyville −17°F and Fairfield on the Harborcreek shore −14°F, zone 5b. Brickyard Road in Harborcreek crosses the old Lake Warren and Lake Whittlesey terraces, and Route 20 follows the Whittlesey edge. A 1936 Michigan State bulletin found ridges just 25 to 30 feet above a plain can be nearly as frost-free as high hills. The spring layer splits Harborcreek: Harborcreek itself plans for −17°F but reads 8°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom, while Harbor Ridge, up on the bench, reads 3°F warmer. The April 27, 2023 frost hit vineyards hardest along Route 20 in eastern Erie County, Harborcreek included, according to the Lake Erie Regional Grape Program.

North East, about 14 miles northeast of Erie, is cherry country as much as grape country, with a summer Cherry Festival, Penn State's Lake Erie grape research center and u-pick farms. Downtown sits at 793 feet, 170 feet above its floor, and plans for −16°F, zone 5a, reading 2°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom. Orchard Beach plans for −14°F and Freeport Heights −15°F, but Freeport at the creek mouth reads 8°F colder. Up the escarpment, Kerrs Corners, 450 feet above its floor, plans for −19°F and reads 1°F colder than downtown Erie; over the top in Greenfield Township, Colt Station plans for −22°F. In the April 2024 freeze, loss projections near North East ran 0 to 5 percent.

Put sweet cherries (Lapins, Gold, Black Gold, Skeena, Bing, Stella) and peaches like Contender and Blushingstar on the warm terraces and slopes, with Superior and Italian plums. Toka is a good pollenizer for Superior, and our pollination maps show the rest. Concord grape, rated −30°F, clears every lake plain town with 10°F or more to spare.

Ripley, Westfield, Portland and Brocton

Over the line in New York, Ripley and the hamlet of State Line plan for −16°F. Westfield, where Welch's moved in 1897 for the Concord climate, plans for −16°F, zone 5a, sits 150 feet above its floor and reads 2°F warmer than downtown Erie at bloom, the best spring reading of any lake plain town we checked; Barcelona, at the harbor below, reads 2°F colder. Up the escarpment, Minnegar Corners plans for −19°F and reads 3°F warmer, and on top Volusia and Lombard plan for −19°F. Back in the valleys, Raters Corners drops to −23°F and reads 7°F colder.

East of Westfield the shore gets colder. Portland plans for −19°F and Brocton −20°F, and the stations agree: on February 16, 2015 the Portland station read −23°F and the Dunkirk airport −28°F, and the Fredonia station read −26°F on February 15, 1943, colder than Jamestown on the plateau (−15°F) in the same cold snap. Presque Isle Wine Cellars says the escarpment sits lower and farther from the lake east of Erie County, and the season shrinks that way. Brocton reads 6°F colder than downtown Erie in spring, and Fredonia 5°F colder.

The April 2024 freeze also ran worse eastward: loss projections went from 15 to 20 percent at Ripley to 50 to 75 percent at Westfield and 80 to 100 percent near Silver Creek. We haven't found a published explanation, and our still-night spring layer, which reads Westfield warm, doesn't explain it. Plant stone fruit on Westfield's terraces and the escarpment face; on Brocton's and Fredonia's lower ground, plant apples, haskap (our Honeyberry) and currants. Past Silver Creek, the Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Lockport map is the next one east.

Fairview, Girard and Lake City

West of Millcreek the plain cools a few degrees. Fairview, on its terrace, plans for −18°F, as do Avonia and Manchester Beach, and the township's slopes read best in spring: Lakeview Acres and Merritt, 170 to 180 feet above their floor, read 4°F warmer than downtown Erie. Girard, on the bench above Elk Creek, and Lake City, just east of the creek's mouth, plan for −20°F, zone 5a; Girard reads 1°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom and Lake City 4°F colder. Elk Creek drains about 99 square miles down from McKean Township, so keep early bloomers out of its valley. The bluff-top neighborhoods by Lake City (Erie Lakelands, Wellers Beach) read 8°F to 9°F warmer at bloom, but the bluffs are sand and gravel over clay till, and geologists who measured one called its edge unstable, so set trees back. The −25°F peaches and Stella have 5°F or more of room here.

Edinboro, Waterford, Union City and French Creek

Over the rim the numbers drop fast. McKean, on a hillside at 1,060 feet just behind the escarpment, plans for −20°F. Edinboro, at the south end of Edinboro Lake on Conneauttee Creek and 10 feet above its floor, plans for −24°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −8°F, and reads 10°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom. Conneauttee Heights, 110 feet up, plans for −22°F and reads 5°F colder, and Gibson Hill reads 4°F warmer.

Waterford, just north of Lake LeBoeuf, and Mill Village on French Creek plan for −25°F. Union City, where the South Branch of French Creek crosses town, plans for −25°F, zone 4a, right on its floor, and Wattsburg, at the forks of French Creek, plans for −25°F and reads 10°F colder than downtown Erie in spring. Plant the rises: Oak Hill, 220 feet up between Waterford and Union City, plans for −21°F and reads 2°F warmer than downtown Erie. The southwest corner is just as cold though lower. Albion, at 887 feet on its valley floor, plans for −26°F, zone 4a, and the Springboro station at the map's edge read −28°F in the February 16, 2015 cold snap and −31°F on February 21.

Corry, Clymer and Chautauqua Lake

The Corry station, which ran from 1917 to 1996, bottomed out at −30°F on February 9, 1934 and January 19, 1994. Corry sits 40 feet above its floor and plans for −25°F, MFTC zone 4b, with a typical winter of −9°F, reading 8°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom. Around it the floors run colder: Columbus and Elgin −26°F, Sugar Grove −27°F, Chandlers Valley −30°F, and Wrightsville, on a river bottom in that corner, has the coldest spring reading of any named place on the map, 15°F colder than downtown Erie. In New York, Findley Lake plans for −24°F, and Clymer, Sherman and French Creek −26°F, reading 9°F to 11°F colder at bloom, while Clymer Hill, 320 feet above its floor, plans for −22°F and reads 5°F warmer than downtown Erie.

Chautauqua Lake, at 1,308 feet, is mostly shallow (its south basin averages 11 feet deep) and ices over in a hard winter, as it did completely in January 2025, so height above the water matters more than the lake. Mayville, at the north end and 150 feet above its floor, plans for −19°F, zone 5a, and reads 2°F warmer than downtown Erie in spring. Chautauqua plans for −21°F, Bemus Point −24°F, Lakewood −23°F and Ashville −25°F. The steep slopes right above the water read best in spring (Sunset Bay 7°F warmer than downtown Erie), and the bay heads worst (Warner Bay 10°F colder).

Spring frost and bloom, from the shore to the plateau

NOAA station records, 1991 to 2020 medians: last 32°F in spring, last 28°F, first 32°F in fall, frost-free days, and the late-year (1 in 10) last 32°F.

• Erie airport station (729 feet): April 28, April 10, November 5; 191 days; May 18.
• Fredonia station (760 feet): April 28, April 14, October 25; 172 days; May 21.
• Dunkirk airport station (669 feet): May 4, April 26, October 18; 165 days; May 19.
• Springboro station, at the map's edge (1,005 feet): May 16, April 29, October 13; 150 days; May 25.
• Chandlers Valley station, in a cold plateau valley (1,490 feet): May 20, May 15, October 3; 136 days; June 1.

That's 55 days of season between the Erie airport and Chandlers Valley. North East, Westfield, Edinboro and Corry have no station with frost dates for those years, so use the nearest station and check the spring layer for how your spot compares with downtown Erie. Some zone sites give Erie a May 30 last frost; the airport's median is April 28.

Cool lake water holds bud break back near the shore, Penn State and the wineries say, so buds there are still tight when a frost comes. In 2012, after record March warmth, frosts killed all the primary grape buds at sites far from the lake and almost none near it (Cornell's Terry Bates). But Concord bud break here has moved from about May 11 in the 1970s to about April 29 in the 2020s with no change in frost-free days, so frost catches tender shoots more often.

Open blossoms of nearly every tree fruit start dying near 28°F, but only about 15 percent of apple blossoms need to set for a crop, and unless the fruit is clustered like cherries and grapes, most fruit can lose half its blossoms with little effect. Open haskap flowers take 19°F, and Penn State's North East haskaps flower in early May.

Site matters most (the FAO's frost manual calls it the single most important frost protection). Put apricots, peaches, sweet cherries, plums and pears on the escarpment face and the warm terraces, earliest bloomers highest, and keep them out of creek mouths, draws and plateau floors. A hedge across a slope backs cold air up into the trees above it, so gap it at the low side. Frost cloth of 0.5, 0.9 and 1.5 ounces per square yard gains about 4°F, 6°F and 8°F (Alabama Extension's figures).

What the weather records say

NOAA station records here bottom out at −32°F at Chandlers Valley (February 16 and 17, 2015). Then come Springboro −31°F (2015), Corry −30°F (1934 and 1994), the Dunkirk airport −28°F (2015), Fredonia −26°F (1943), Portland −23°F (2015), Westfield −19°F (1912 and 1979), the Erie airport −18°F (January 19, 1994 and February 16, 2015) and the old Weather Bureau station in Erie −13°F. The Erie airport's yearly low has averaged −1°F over 100 years, Corry's −13°F. The airport has warmed about 3.9°F since 1951 (the University of Michigan's GLISA team), yet its −18°F in 2015 tied its record.

USDA's map puts Erie's lakeshore in zone 7a, the rest of the city in 6b and most of Erie County in 6a. Ours read 5a and 5b on the lake plain and 4a and 4b on the plateau. USDA's zones are the average winter's coldest night and ours are the bad night to plan for; NOAA station records show that night runs a median 13°F below a station's average winter low.

What you can grow here

Everything we sell rated −30°F or colder clears every named place on this map (Chandlers Valley right at the line), and on the lake plain nearly the whole list clears, so the choice comes down to site and bloom.

The lake plain and escarpment face, zone 5a and 5b (−14°F to −20°F)

Nearly all of the lake plain in both states, plus Mayville. Everything rated −20°F or colder clears: Bing, Santa Rosa plum, Flavortop and Arctic Glo nectarines, Baldwin apple and Javid's Iranian almond (at the line in Brocton, Girard and Lake City). With more room: Redstar, Glohaven and PF-24C peaches, Hardired nectarine, Stella, SnowCzar almond, Montana Trial Persimmon and Purvis Hardy English walnut. Rated −30°F and colder: Contender peach (Tom McCamant grows it at Forbidden Fruit Orchard in Paradise, Montana, and it's the only commercial peach we know of that has taken −32°F), Goldrich and Tomcot apricots, Stanley and Italian plums, Harrow Sweet and D'Anjou pears, Montana Trial Pawpaw, Concord grape and apples like Northern Spy and Roxbury Russet. The Chicago Hardy Fig is worth a try only against a south wall in the −14°F and −15°F pockets.

Plateau rises and rim towns, zone 4b (−20°F to −25°F)

Edinboro, Waterford, Corry, Findley Lake, Chautauqua, Bemus Point and Lakewood, and rises like Oak Hill and Clymer Hill. Everything rated −25°F or colder clears, Redstar, Risingstar and Glowingstar peaches, Stella and SnowCzar included, though at −24°F to −25°F (Edinboro, Waterford, Corry) with almost nothing to spare. With room: Contender and Blushingstar peaches (Blushingstar came through −25°F at our place on January 13, 2024 without damage), Siberian C peach, Westcot apricot, Lapins and Gold cherries (one of our growers in Cowley, Wyoming reported no damage on Lapins at −33°F), Evan's Bali tart cherry, Superior and Toka plums, Summercrisp pear, Honeycrisp and Haralson apples and Marquette grape. Bing is worth a try on the −21°F to −22°F rises against a south wall.

Plateau valley floors, zone 4a (colder than −25°F)

Union City, Wattsburg, Clymer, Sherman, Columbus, Elgin, Albion, Sugar Grove and Chandlers Valley. Everything rated −30°F or colder clears, but most of these floors read 9°F to 14°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom (Albion 6°F), so they're apple and bush fruit ground: Freedom, Empire and Liberty apples, Wealthy and Zestar!, Kerr and Trailman applecrabs (if you only plant one tree, make it one of those two), Honeyberry, Montana Black Currant, Red Lake currant, Pixwell gooseberry and Boyne raspberry. Red Lake and Montana Black Currant fruited well at our place in 2026 after their flower buds saw about 22°F, and we've never seen winter damage on Montana Black Currant. Stone fruit and pears go up on the nearest rise.

Roots, soil and local problems

Roots are the weak link, and snow protects them: at Ed Schultz's farm in Gallatin Gateway, Montana, Bud 118 apple rootstock has seen near −50°F with no rootstock damage, under snow. The danger is a snowless cold snap or a windswept spot. The New York plateau's common soil, the Erie series, is somewhat poorly drained till with a fragipan 10 to 21 inches down, so plant the better drained knolls and test first: dig 2 feet down, fill the hole, let it drain, refill it, and under 10 hours means well drained. At North East, Penn State found birds are the big problem on haskaps, so net them once the berries color. On the zone 4 plateau, taper water from mid-August so trees harden off, and paint trunks with white interior latex cut half and half with water, in late fall on a day above 50°F.

Grape and fruit history along the lake

Deacon Elijah Fay planted grapes near Brocton in 1818. Erie County's first commercial vineyard went in at Moorheadville in Harborcreek in 1843, and North East's first, in Catawba, in 1850. Ephraim Bull raised the Concord in Massachusetts in 1849; Thomas Welch made the first Concord juice in 1869, and Charles Welch moved the company to Westfield in 1897 for the Concord climate. By then North East called itself the world's largest grape producer and shipper. The growers' National Grape Cooperative bought Welch's in 1956, and the Lake Erie AVA came in 1983. Today the Chautauqua-Erie Grape Belt runs about 31,500 acres of vines, about 98.5 percent Concord and Niagara types, and the u-picks in North East and Lake City still grow cherries and peaches a few miles from the lake. West into Ohio, the Cleveland, Akron and Cuyahoga Valley map is the nearest one.

Questions people ask

What hardiness zone is Erie, PA?

Downtown Erie plans for −16°F, MFTC zone 5a, with a typical winter near 0°F; the warmest pockets west of downtown plan for −14°F, zone 5b, and plateau towns like Edinboro and Corry −24°F to −25°F, zone 4b. USDA's map puts the lakeshore in 7a and the rest of the city in 6b. USDA's is based on an average winter, ours on the bad night we plan for.

When is the last frost in Erie, PA?

At the Erie airport station the median last 32°F is April 28 (NOAA station records, 1991 to 2020), and in a late year (1 in 10) it comes by May 18. The first fall 32°F comes around November 5, for 191 frost-free days. The Chandlers Valley station, in a cold plateau valley, has a median last frost of May 20.

Can you grow peaches and cherries around Erie and North East?

Yes. In the lake plain towns every peach and sweet cherry we sell clears the winter, Bing (−20°F) included. Plant them on ground that reads warm in spring, like the North East terraces or the escarpment slopes, not in a creek mouth like Freeport, which reads 8°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom.

How far inland does Lake Erie help?

Not far. The Erie County lake plain is only 2 to 5 miles wide, and where the plateau rises close to shore the lake's help can stop about 3 miles in. Most plateau towns plan 8°F to 12°F colder than downtown Erie.

Does Lake Erie protect fruit from spring frost?

Mostly by holding bloom back: in 2012, grape sites near the lake lost almost no primary buds while sites farther away lost them all. In the April 2024 freeze, loss projections ran 50 to 75 percent at Westfield but 0 to 5 percent near North East.

What fruit trees grow in Edinboro and Corry?

Edinboro plans for −24°F and Corry −25°F, both MFTC zone 4b, so everything rated −25°F or colder clears. Both towns read 8°F to 10°F colder than downtown Erie at bloom, so plant apples, haskap and currants low and put peaches, apricots, plums and cherries on a rise above town.

Warmer spots, colder spots

Here's the number to plan for at named places on the map, warmest first. Each one is the 1-in-30-year low for that spot: the cold hardiness calculator's number from the same weather stations, sharpened by our microclimate model for the ground right there. Zone is our MFTC zone, set by that one bad night, not by an average.

The weather stations behind it

These are the long-record stations in and around this map, with each one's own numbers since the winter of 1995-96. The last column is this map's 30-year number right at the station, which won't match the station exactly: it's a blend of the stations around it, the way the calculator works everywhere.

Source: NOAA records through ACIS, winters 1995-96 through 2025-26. What the "carried forward," "gaps filled" and AWOS rows mean is explained in how our microclimate maps work.