Wellsboro, PA 16901 Frost Dates
16901, near Wellsboro, PA: the frost window
Around 05/09 is the usual last spring frost, about 254 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 155 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Wellsboro, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Wellsboro's growing season runs out in roughly 6 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 05/09 isn't a guarantee
05/09 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/25 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/25 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Wellsboro against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 155 frost-free days, Wellsboro places 33,975 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within PA, it ranks 1,781 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 16901: local microclimates, on what one yard in Wellsboro can differ from the 16901 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Wellsboro's frost date answer different questions.