East Petersburg, PA 17520 Frost Dates
17520, near East Petersburg, PA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/18, about 233 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/25, roughly 186 days after the last spring frost.
East Petersburg 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
East Petersburg'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/04 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/05 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
East Petersburg against the rest of the dataset
About 186 days separate East Petersburg's last and first frost, putting it 22,785 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within PA, it ranks 652 of 2,088.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 17520: local microclimates, on what one yard in East Petersburg can differ from the 17520 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and East Petersburg's frost date answer different questions.