Hays, KS 67601 Frost Dates
67601, near Hays, KS: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/19, about 234 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/22, roughly 184 days after the last spring frost.
Hays 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
Hays'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
04/19 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/07 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/02 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Hays against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 184 frost-free days, Hays places 23,448 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within KS, it ranks 424 of 745.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 67601: local microclimates, on what one yard in Hays can differ from the 67601 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Hays's frost date answer different questions.