Barbourville, KY 40943 Frost Dates
40943, near Barbourville, KY: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/19, about 234 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/24, roughly 187 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 Barbourville, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Barbourville's growing season runs out in roughly 8 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/19 isn't a guarantee
04/19 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/04 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/06 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Barbourville against the rest of the dataset
About 187 days separate Barbourville's last and first frost, putting it 22,385 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within KY, it ranks 657 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 40943: local microclimates, on what one yard in Barbourville can differ from the 40943 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Barbourville's frost date answer different questions.