Winchester, KY 40391 Frost Dates
40391, near Winchester, KY: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/20, about 235 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 182 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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 Winchester, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Winchester's growing season runs out in roughly 7 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/20 isn't a guarantee
04/20 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/06 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/08 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Winchester against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 182 frost-free days, Winchester places 24,087 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within KY, it ranks 767 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 40391: the frost range, on how to read the range around Winchester's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Winchester can differ from the 40391 normal.