Elizabethtown, KY 42724 Frost Dates
42724, near Elizabethtown, 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 191 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 Elizabethtown, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Elizabethtown'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 04/16 isn't a guarantee
04/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/31 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Elizabethtown against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 191 frost-free days, Elizabethtown places 20,704 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within KY, it ranks 485 of 909.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 42724: the frost range, on how to read the range around Elizabethtown's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Elizabethtown can differ from the 42724 normal.