FrostDateCheck

Corning, NY 14830 Frost Dates

14830, near Corning, NY: the frost window

Zone 5b

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/17, roughly 262 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/02, roughly 139 days after the last spring frost.

Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Corning, not a forecast for this year.

Stretching the season past the first frost

Corning's growing season runs out in roughly 5 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.

Why 05/17 isn't a guarantee

05/17 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/30 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/31 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Corning against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 139 frost-free days, Corning places 37,211 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NY, it ranks 1,801 of 1,951.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 14830: local microclimates, on what one yard in Corning can differ from the 14830 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Corning's frost date answer different questions.