Drakesville, IA 52552 Frost Dates
52552, near Drakesville, IA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/16, about 231 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/22, roughly 188 days after the last spring frost.
Drakesville 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
Drakesville's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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 Drakesville's last frost
04/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/30 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Drakesville against the rest of the dataset
About 188 days separate Drakesville's last and first frost, putting it 22,226 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 11 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 52552: local microclimates, on what one yard in Drakesville can differ from the 52552 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Drakesville's frost date answer different questions.