Carleton, MI 48117 Frost Dates
48117, near Carleton, MI: the frost window
Around 04/27 is the usual last spring frost, about 242 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 176 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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 Carleton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Carleton'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 04/27 isn't a guarantee
04/27 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 05/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Carleton against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 176 frost-free days, Carleton places 26,483 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MI, it ranks 121 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 48117: local microclimates, on what one yard in Carleton can differ from the 48117 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Carleton's frost date answer different questions.