Milford, IN 46542 Frost Dates
46542, near Milford, IN: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/28, about 243 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 171 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 Milford, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Milford'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.
Why 04/28 isn't a guarantee
04/28 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 05/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Milford against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 171 frost-free days, Milford places 28,696 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IN, it ranks 766 of 927.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 46542: local microclimates, on what one yard in Milford can differ from the 46542 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Milford's frost date answer different questions.