Merrillville, IN 46308 Frost Dates
Merrillville, IN: when does the frost end?
Around 04/29 is the usual last spring frost, about 244 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/16, roughly 171 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5b (-15 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 Merrillville, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 7 weeks until Merrillville's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/29 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/14 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Merrillville against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 171 frost-free days, Merrillville places 28,590 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IN, it ranks 751 of 927.
Learn more
Before leaning on 46308's figures: the frost range explains how to read the range around Merrillville's dates instead of trusting one, while local microclimates explains what one yard in Merrillville can differ from the 46308 normal.