Watterson Park, KY 40294 Frost Dates
40294, near Watterson Park, KY: the frost window
Around 04/03 is the usual last spring frost, about 218 days away. 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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
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 14,315 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within KY, it ranks 67 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 40294: the frost range, on how to read the range around Watterson Park's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Watterson Park can differ from the 40294 normal.