Scranton, AR 72863 Frost Dates
72863, near Scranton, AR: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/28, about 212 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/05, roughly 223 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8a (10 to 15°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 Scranton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Scranton'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.
The actual range around Scranton's last frost
03/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/08 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Scranton against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 223 frost-free days, Scranton places 12,152 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AR, it ranks 381 of 687.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 72863: local microclimates, on what one yard in Scranton can differ from the 72863 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Scranton's frost date answer different questions.