Manchester, PA 17345 Frost Dates
17345, near Manchester, PA: the frost window
Around 04/09 is the usual last spring frost, about 224 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/02, roughly 206 days after the last spring frost.
Manchester 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
Manchester'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.
Why 04/09 isn't a guarantee
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.
Manchester against the rest of the dataset
About 206 days separate Manchester's last and first frost, putting it 16,022 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within PA, it ranks 106 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 17345: local microclimates, on what one yard in Manchester can differ from the 17345 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Manchester's frost date answer different questions.