Garner, IA 50438 Frost Dates
50438, near Garner, IA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/03, about 248 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/01, roughly 150 days after the last spring frost.
Garner sits in USDA Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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
Garner'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 Garner's last frost
05/03 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/19 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Garner against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 150 frost-free days, Garner places 35,295 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IA, it ranks 1,000 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50438: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Garner's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Garner's dates instead of trusting one.