Guide
The season, month by month.
Coatings and sealers cure by losing water, so they need warm days, warm nights and no rain. In Northeast Ohio that is roughly mid May to mid October, reliably June through September, with the schedule set by Lake Erie and the frost rather than by anyone's calendar. Here is the year as the weather station at Hopkins records it.
| Month | High °F | Low °F | Rain days | Nights ≤ 32 | Nights > 50 | Freeze-thaw days | The work |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 35.8 | 22.3 | 7.9 | 25.8 | 0 | 12.2 | Estimates, proposals, the calendar. Nothing is coated. |
| February | 38.5 | 23.7 | 6.8 | 23.5 | 0 | 13.2 | Book the season. Multi-court jobs and school courts are placed now. |
| March | 47.1 | 30.7 | 8.2 | 20.3 | 0 | 16.3 | The worst freeze-thaw month and pothole season. Spring walks and photographs. |
| April | 60.1 | 40.8 | 8.2 | 6.3 | 3.5 | 6.1 | Pothole patching, sweeping, drains. Lakeshore lots at the end of the month; no courts. |
| May | 71.1 | 51.4 | 8.2 | 0.2 | 14.6 | 0.2 | Crack filling and the first sealcoats. Courts from the last frost (about May 4) on, south and lakeshore first. |
| June | 79.8 | 61.1 | 7.1 | 0 | 26.7 | 0 | Court season. School courts free from about June 7. Resurfacing, conversions, new construction. |
| July | 83.7 | 65.3 | 6.8 | 0 | 30.6 | 0 | Court season. Dark courts over 140 °F by afternoon: early starts, coats before the heat. |
| August | 82 | 63.9 | 6.2 | 0 | 30.5 | 0 | Court season; school courts must be done by August 1 for the girls' season. Sealcoating in full swing. |
| September | 75.6 | 57.1 | 6.6 | 0 | 22.3 | 0 | The best sealcoating month. Last resurfacings. The autumn walks. |
| October | 63.7 | 46.5 | 7.6 | 1 | 8 | 1 | Crack filling before the freeze (first frost about October 14, first freeze about October 28). Coatings only in the first half. |
| November | 51.3 | 36.7 | 7.7 | 11.6 | 1.7 | 10.5 | Leaves off, nets down, plow instructions. Nothing is coated. |
| December | 40.4 | 28.2 | 7.9 | 22.1 | 0 | 14.2 | Stay off it. Next year's proposals. |
Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, NOAA 1991-2020 normals: mean high and low, days with 0.01 inch or more, nights at or below 32 °F, nights with the low above 50 °F, and days with a freeze and a thaw (the last two derived from NOAA's daily record). Blue rows: the season. Yellow: the shoulders. The lakeshore runs a week or two ahead of the table and the snow belt a week or two behind.
Spring
Repairs first.
Hopkins' last freeze averages April 23 and its last frost May 4; Akron-Canton's are a week later and Youngstown's two. April is for sweeping, drains, potholes and the spring walk with a camera. Crack filling and the first lots start in May, from the lakeshore and the south side outward, and the first courts are coated from the last frost on. A lot in Lakewood can be worked in April; a court in Chardon cannot be trusted until mid May.
Summer
Courts.
June, July, August and September are the season: highs of 76 to 84, nights above 50 on 22 to 31 nights a month, no freezing nights at all. School courts are free from about June 7, when the boys' tennis season ends, to July 31, the day before the girls' coaching window opens; that six-week slot books first every year. July's dark courts top 140 °F by afternoon, so the coats go on early. Expect six to eight rain days in every one of these months.
Autumn
Seal and fill, then stop.
September is the best sealcoating month of the year: warm, a little drier, the lots quieter. October's nights are above 50 on only eight nights, the first frost averages October 14 and the first freeze October 28, so coatings stop in the first half and the crack-filling rush runs to the last warm week. Then the leaves come off, the nets come down, the plow driver gets his instructions, and nothing touches a surface until April.
Questions
About the weather.
Why can't you coat in April when it is 65 degrees?
Because the night will be 40, or 30. Acrylic coatings and asphalt sealers cure by losing water, and they need the surface and the air above 50 °F and rising through the day and a night that stays well above freezing while the coat sets. Hopkins averages six nights at or below 32 °F in April and a last freeze around April 23; the last frost is around May 4, and out in the snow belt it is later. A coat that freezes before it cures peels next spring, and we have seen it.
Does it rain less in summer?
No. Northeast Ohio has no dry season: every month gets 6 to 8 days with measurable rain and 2.5 to 3.9 inches. A summer job still loses days to weather; the difference is that the days between are warm enough to work. We watch the radar and do not start a coat we cannot finish before the rain.
When should a school book court work?
In the winter, for June. Ohio's boys' tennis season ends in early June and the girls' coaching window opens August 1, so a school court is free from about June 7 to July 31 and must be playable again by early March for boys' practice. That window fills first every year.
Is the snow belt different?
By weeks. Chardon gets 114 inches of snow a year to Hopkins' 64, has 50 more freezing nights, and its last and first freezes sit two to three weeks inside Cleveland's. Geauga, Lake, Ashtabula and the eastern hills of Summit and Portage start later in spring and finish earlier in autumn, and the October crack-fill matters more there than anywhere.
How many freeze-thaw cycles do we really get?
About seventy days a year at Hopkins on which the low is at or below 32 °F and the high is above it (73.8 a year over 1991-2020, counted from NOAA's daily record), with March the worst month at 16. Dark pavement in March sun thaws before the air does, so the real count on a court is higher. That number is the whole argument for filling cracks in October.
Reading
From the articles.
Fill the cracks before the first freeze
The cheapest hour of maintenance all year is the one spent filling cracks in October.
Read onWhat a Northeast Ohio winter does to a court
Water gets in, freezes, pushes, thaws, and does it forty more times by March. How the damage happens and how to blunt it.
Read onResurfacing a multi-court facility without closing it all
Two courts at a time, the program kept running, the colors matched across years. How we phase a club.
Read onFree estimates
Book the week before someone else does.
The calendar fills from February. Tell us the month you need and we will tell you what is open.
The yard
4000 East 86th Street, Cleveland, OH 44105
Off Broadway Avenue, south of downtown, ten minutes from I-77 and I-490.
Serving Cuyahoga, Summit, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Geauga, Portage, Stark and Ashtabula counties. Municipal, school, club, HOA and commercial work; residential courts by the job.