Dayton, KY 41074 Frost Dates
41074, near Dayton, KY: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/16, roughly 231 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/25, roughly 190 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Dayton in Zone 6b (-5 to 0°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Dayton'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.
The actual range around Dayton's last frost
04/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/03 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Dayton against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 190 frost-free days, Dayton places 21,140 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within KY, it ranks 538 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 41074: local microclimates, on what one yard in Dayton can differ from the 41074 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Dayton's frost date answer different questions.