Briarwood, KY 40242 Frost Dates
40242, near Briarwood, KY: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/03, about 218 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/03, roughly 214 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 Briarwood, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Briarwood's growing season runs out in roughly 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/03 isn't a guarantee
04/03 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Briarwood against the rest of the dataset
Briarwood's growing season runs about 214 days, ranking 14,348 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within KY, it ranks 80 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 40242: local microclimates, on what one yard in Briarwood can differ from the 40242 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Briarwood's frost date answer different questions.