Prescott, IA 50859 Frost Dates
50859, near Prescott, IA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/27, about 242 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 168 days after the last spring frost.
Prescott sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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
Prescott'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 Prescott's last frost
04/27 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/13 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Prescott against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 168 frost-free days, Prescott places 29,795 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IA, it ranks 396 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 50859: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Prescott's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Prescott's dates instead of trusting one.