Mount Joy, PA 17552 Frost Dates
Mount Joy, PA: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/10, roughly 162 days after the last spring frost.
Mount Joy 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
With roughly 6 weeks until Mount Joy's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Mount Joy against the rest of the dataset
About 162 days separate Mount Joy's last and first frost, putting it 31,697 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within PA, it ranks 1,655 of 2,088.
Learn more
Before leaning on 17552's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Mount Joy can differ from the 17552 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 7a and Mount Joy's frost date answer different questions.