Melcher-Dallas, IA 50062 Frost Dates
50062, near Melcher-Dallas, IA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/05, roughly 250 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/05, roughly 151 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Melcher-Dallas in Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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
Melcher-Dallas's growing season runs out in roughly 5 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
05/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/21 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Melcher-Dallas against the rest of the dataset
About 151 days separate Melcher-Dallas's last and first frost, putting it 35,081 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 968 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50062: the frost range, on how to read the range around Melcher-Dallas's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Melcher-Dallas can differ from the 50062 normal.