FrostDateCheck

Port Allegany, PA 16743 Frost Dates

16743, near Port Allegany, PA: the frost window

Zone 5b

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/14, roughly 259 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/04, roughly 143 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 Port Allegany, not a forecast for this year.

Stretching the season past the first frost

Port Allegany'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 05/14 isn't a guarantee

05/14 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/28 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/30 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Port Allegany against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 143 frost-free days, Port Allegany places 36,549 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within PA, it ranks 1,932 of 2,088.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 16743: local microclimates, on what one yard in Port Allegany can differ from the 16743 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Port Allegany's frost date answer different questions.