Walford, IA 52203 Frost Dates
52203, near Walford, IA: the frost window
Around 04/27 is the usual last spring frost, about 242 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/11, roughly 165 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 Walford, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Walford'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 Walford'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.
Walford against the rest of the dataset
About 165 days separate Walford's last and first frost, putting it 30,632 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 512 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 52203: local microclimates, on what one yard in Walford can differ from the 52203 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Walford's frost date answer different questions.