Orient, IA 50858 Frost Dates
50858, near Orient, IA: the frost window
Around 04/25 is the usual last spring frost, about 240 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 170 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 Orient, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Orient'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 Orient's last frost
04/25 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/07 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Orient against the rest of the dataset
Orient's growing season runs about 170 days, ranking 29,209 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IA, it ranks 314 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50858: local microclimates, on what one yard in Orient can differ from the 50858 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Orient's frost date answer different questions.