Licking, MO 65542 Frost Dates
65542, near Licking, MO: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/20, roughly 235 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 181 days after the last spring frost.
Licking 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
Licking's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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 Licking's last frost
04/20 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/05 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Licking against the rest of the dataset
Licking's growing season runs about 181 days, ranking 24,539 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within MO, it ranks 985 of 1,129.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 65542: the frost range, on how to read the range around Licking's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Licking can differ from the 65542 normal.