Meridian Hills, IN 46268 Frost Dates
46268, near Meridian Hills, IN: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/12, about 227 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/29, roughly 198 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Meridian Hills, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Meridian Hills's growing season runs out in roughly 9 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 Meridian Hills's last frost
04/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/30 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/29 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Meridian Hills against the rest of the dataset
About 198 days separate Meridian Hills's last and first frost, putting it 18,452 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IN, it ranks 121 of 927.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 46268: local microclimates, on what one yard in Meridian Hills can differ from the 46268 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Meridian Hills's frost date answer different questions.