South Dayton, NY 14138 Frost Dates
14138, near South Dayton, NY: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/05, roughly 250 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 167 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for South Dayton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
South Dayton's growing season runs out in roughly 8 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
The actual range around South Dayton's last frost
05/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/22 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/20 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
South Dayton against the rest of the dataset
South Dayton's growing season runs about 167 days, ranking 30,138 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NY, it ranks 868 of 1,951.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 14138: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and South Dayton's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around South Dayton's dates instead of trusting one.