Penn Yan, NY 14478 Frost Dates
14478, near Penn Yan, NY: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/30, about 245 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/22, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Penn Yan in Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Penn Yan'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 Penn Yan's last frost
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Penn Yan against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 173 frost-free days, Penn Yan places 27,872 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NY, it ranks 649 of 1,951.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 14478: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Penn Yan's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Penn Yan's dates instead of trusting one.