Columbus, IN 47201 Frost Dates
47201, near Columbus, IN: the frost window
Around 04/11 is the usual last spring frost, about 226 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/25, roughly 195 days after the last spring frost.
Columbus sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Columbus'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.
Why 04/11 isn't a guarantee
04/11 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/31 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/30 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Columbus against the rest of the dataset
About 195 days separate Columbus's last and first frost, putting it 19,157 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IN, it ranks 178 of 927.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 47201: local microclimates, on what one yard in Columbus can differ from the 47201 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Columbus's frost date answer different questions.