Watterson Park, KY 40269 Frost Dates
40269, near Watterson Park, KY: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/03, roughly 218 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/03, roughly 214 days after the last spring frost.
Watterson Park 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
Watterson Park'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.
Watterson Park against the rest of the dataset
Watterson Park's growing season runs about 214 days, ranking 14,305 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within KY, it ranks 57 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 40269: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Watterson Park's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Watterson Park's dates instead of trusting one.