Paola, KS 66071 Frost Dates
66071, near Paola, KS: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/13, about 228 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 191 days after the last spring frost.
Paola 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
Paola'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/31 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/28 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Paola against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 191 frost-free days, Paola places 20,757 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within KS, it ranks 269 of 745.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 66071: local microclimates, on what one yard in Paola can differ from the 66071 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Paola's frost date answer different questions.