Melcher-Dallas, IA 50163 Frost Dates
50163, near Melcher-Dallas, IA: the frost window
Around 05/05 is the usual last spring frost, about 250 days away. 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.
The actual range around Melcher-Dallas's last frost
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 35,082 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 969 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50163: local microclimates, on what one yard in Melcher-Dallas can differ from the 50163 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Melcher-Dallas's frost date answer different questions.