Franklin, IN 46162 Frost Dates
46162, near Franklin, IN: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/20, roughly 235 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 180 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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 Franklin, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Franklin's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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
04/20 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 05/07 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Franklin against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 180 frost-free days, Franklin places 24,797 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IN, it ranks 478 of 927.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 46162: the frost range, on how to read the range around Franklin's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Franklin can differ from the 46162 normal.