Rake, IA 50465 Frost Dates
50465, near Rake, IA: the frost window
Around 04/30 is the usual last spring frost, about 245 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/06, roughly 158 days after the last spring frost.
Rake 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
Rake's growing season runs out in roughly 6 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 Rake's last frost
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Rake against the rest of the dataset
About 158 days separate Rake's last and first frost, putting it 33,152 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 825 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50465: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Rake's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Rake's dates instead of trusting one.