Windsor Heights, IA 50324 Frost Dates
50324, near Windsor Heights, IA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/18, about 233 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 184 days after the last spring frost.
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 Windsor Heights, not a forecast for this year.
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.
The actual range around Windsor Heights's last frost
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
Windsor Heights's growing season runs about 184 days, ranking 23,505 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IA, it ranks 67 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50324: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Windsor Heights's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Windsor Heights's dates instead of trusting one.