Lake City, AR 72437 Frost Dates
72437, near Lake City, AR: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/23, roughly 207 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/09, roughly 230 days after the last spring frost.
Lake City sits in USDA Zone 8a (10 to 15°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
Lake City's growing season runs out in roughly 10 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
03/23 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/07 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lake City against the rest of the dataset
About 230 days separate Lake City's last and first frost, putting it 10,414 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within AR, it ranks 232 of 687.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 72437: local microclimates, on what one yard in Lake City can differ from the 72437 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Lake City's frost date answer different questions.