Windsor Heights, IA 50265 Frost Dates
50265, near Windsor Heights, IA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/18, roughly 233 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 184 days after the last spring frost.
Windsor Heights sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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
Windsor Heights'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 04/18 isn't a guarantee
04/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/04 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/02 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Windsor Heights against the rest of the dataset
About 184 days separate Windsor Heights's last and first frost, putting it 23,501 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 63 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50265: local microclimates, on what one yard in Windsor Heights can differ from the 50265 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Windsor Heights's frost date answer different questions.