Shade Gap, PA 17219 Frost Dates
17219, near Shade Gap, PA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/21, roughly 236 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/24, roughly 185 days after the last spring frost.
Shade Gap 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
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 04/21 isn't a guarantee
04/21 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/06 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Shade Gap against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 185 frost-free days, Shade Gap places 23,362 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within PA, it ranks 750 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 17219: 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.