Elizabethtown, PA 17022 Frost Dates
17022, near Elizabethtown, PA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/09, roughly 224 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/02, roughly 206 days after the last spring frost.
Elizabethtown sits in USDA Zone 7a (0 to 5°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
Elizabethtown's growing season runs out in roughly 9 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
04/09 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/28 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/25 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Elizabethtown against the rest of the dataset
Elizabethtown's growing season runs about 206 days, ranking 15,975 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within PA, it ranks 102 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 17022: the frost range, on how to read the range around Elizabethtown's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Elizabethtown can differ from the 17022 normal.