Ulysses, PA 16948 Frost Dates
16948, near Ulysses, PA: the frost window
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 Ulysses, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Ulysses'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
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.
Ulysses against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 143 frost-free days, Ulysses places 36,582 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within PA, it ranks 1,936 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 16948: the frost range, on how to read the range around Ulysses's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Ulysses can differ from the 16948 normal.