Elsmere, KY 41018 Frost Dates
41018, near Elsmere, KY: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/18, roughly 233 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/25, roughly 188 days after the last spring frost.
Elsmere sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Elsmere'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/03 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/07 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Elsmere against the rest of the dataset
Elsmere's growing season runs about 188 days, ranking 21,931 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within KY, it ranks 595 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 41018: local microclimates, on what one yard in Elsmere can differ from the 41018 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Elsmere's frost date answer different questions.