Smithville, AR 72466 Frost Dates
72466, near Smithville, AR: the frost window
Around 03/27 is the usual last spring frost, about 211 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/05, roughly 224 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 7b (5 to 10°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Smithville, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Smithville'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.
Why 03/27 isn't a guarantee
03/27 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Smithville against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 224 frost-free days, Smithville places 11,980 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AR, it ranks 370 of 687.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 72466: local microclimates, on what one yard in Smithville can differ from the 72466 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7b and Smithville's frost date answer different questions.