Kimballton, IA 51543 Frost Dates
51543, near Kimballton, IA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/27, roughly 242 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/09, roughly 165 days after the last spring frost.
Kimballton 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
Kimballton'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 Kimballton's last frost
04/27 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 05/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Kimballton against the rest of the dataset
About 165 days separate Kimballton's last and first frost, putting it 30,739 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 546 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 51543: the frost range, on how to read the range around Kimballton's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Kimballton can differ from the 51543 normal.