Girard, PA 16417 Frost Dates
16417, near Girard, PA: the frost window
Around 04/26 is the usual last spring frost, about 241 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/04, roughly 192 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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 Girard, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Girard's growing season runs out in roughly 10 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
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Girard against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 192 frost-free days, Girard places 20,360 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within PA, it ranks 545 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 16417: local microclimates, on what one yard in Girard can differ from the 16417 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Girard's frost date answer different questions.