Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Frost Dates
46804, near Fort Wayne, IN: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/24, about 239 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 178 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 Fort Wayne, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Fort Wayne's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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
04/24 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Fort Wayne against the rest of the dataset
Fort Wayne's growing season runs about 178 days, ranking 25,544 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IN, it ranks 544 of 927.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 46804: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Fort Wayne's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Fort Wayne's dates instead of trusting one.