North Manchester, IN 46943 Frost Dates
46943, near North Manchester, IN: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/26, about 241 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 174 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 North Manchester, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
North Manchester'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
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
North Manchester against the rest of the dataset
About 174 days separate North Manchester's last and first frost, putting it 27,442 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IN, it ranks 659 of 927.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 46943: local microclimates, on what one yard in North Manchester can differ from the 46943 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and North Manchester's frost date answer different questions.