Columbia, MO 65202 Frost Dates
65202, near Columbia, MO: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/05, roughly 220 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/31, roughly 207 days after the last spring frost.
Columbia sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Columbia's growing season runs out in roughly 9 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/05 isn't a guarantee
04/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/19 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/21 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Columbia against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 207 frost-free days, Columbia places 15,781 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MO, it ranks 193 of 1,129.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 65202: local microclimates, on what one yard in Columbia can differ from the 65202 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Columbia's frost date answer different questions.