Frost dates for Baxter, Kentucky
Half of years have their last spring frost by April 15 — but 1 year in 10 still frosts after May 1.
Every other site gives you one date. A frost date is not a date: it is a percentile from 30 years of records at a nearby weather station, and planting to the median means losing the crop in half of years. Both numbers are below, so you can choose the risk yourself.
The odds
Last spring frost
- Frost this late in 1 year in 10
- May 1
- 1 year in 5
- April 24
- 3 years in 10
- April 20
- 2 years in 5
- April 18
- Half of years (the median)
- April 15
First fall freeze
- Freeze this early in 1 year in 10
- October 17
- 1 year in 5
- October 21
- 3 years in 10
- October 24
- 2 years in 5
- October 27
- Half of years (the median)
- October 30
- Growing season
- about 197 days
- Hardiness zone nearby
- 7a
Where these numbers come from
NOAA NCEI 1991–2020 Climate Normals, station Baxter (USC00150450), at 36.86, -83.33. These are that station's own records, unshifted. The further your garden is from it, the less exactly they describe your ground — the planner resolves the nearest station to your own ZIP and lowers its confidence with distance, rather than presenting one number as if it were measured in your yard.
Cold air also pools in low ground on the clear, still nights when frost happens, so a hollow can freeze while a slope a hundred metres away does not. No table can know that about your garden. Your own logged frosts eventually can.
ZIP codes nearest this station
24263, 24281, 40801, 40806, 40808, 40810, 40815, 40816, 40818, 40819, 40820, 40824, 40827, 40828, 40829, 40830, 40831, 40840, 40844, 40845, 40847, 40849, 40854, 40856, 40858, 40863, 40865, 40870, 40873, 40874, 40902, 40913, 40958, 40964, 40979, 40988, 41735, 41763, 41764, 41775, 41777, 41819.
What can I plant here, and when? →
Nearby stations
The nearest stations, and how their last-frost dates compare — the frost gradient across your area, which no single station shows.
- Big Stone Gap, VA — last frost by April 20
- Whitesburg 2Se, KY — last frost by April 21
- Norris, TN — last frost by April 22
- Breaks Interstate Park, VA — last frost by April 22
- Elizabethton, TN — last frost by April 19
- Paintsville 1E, KY — last frost by April 19
Other stations in Kentucky.
- Louisville Mcalpine, KY — last frost by March 31
- Rochester Ferry, KY — last frost by April 15