Shade Gap, PA 17215 Frost Dates
17215, near Shade Gap, PA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/23, roughly 238 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 177 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 7a (0 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 Shade Gap, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Shade Gap's growing season runs out in roughly 8 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/23 isn't a guarantee
04/23 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/08 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Shade Gap against the rest of the dataset
About 177 days separate Shade Gap's last and first frost, putting it 26,307 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within PA, it ranks 1,012 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 17215: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Shade Gap's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Shade Gap's dates instead of trusting one.