Ankeny, IA 50302 Frost Dates
Frost dates for Ankeny, IA, ZIP 50302
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/23, about 238 days from today. The first fall frost typically arrives around 10/15, about 173 frost-free days later.
Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Ankeny, not a forecast for this year.
What to do before the first frost
Zone 5b around Ankeny has about 7 weeks left before the first fall frost — that's the usual window to get a cold frame up if you want to keep harvesting past it.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/23 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 04/08 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 05/06 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.
How Ankeny compares
At roughly 173 frost-free days, Ankeny places 27,689 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IA, it ranks 215 of 1,042.
Learn more
zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and Ankeny's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range explains how to read the range around Ankeny's dates instead of trusting one.