Ellwood City, PA 16117 Frost Dates
16117, near Ellwood City, PA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/28, about 243 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/18, roughly 172 days after the last spring frost.
Ellwood City sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Ellwood City's growing season runs out in roughly 7 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Ellwood City against the rest of the dataset
About 172 days separate Ellwood City's last and first frost, putting it 28,247 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within PA, it ranks 1,340 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 16117: the frost range, on how to read the range around Ellwood City's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Ellwood City can differ from the 16117 normal.