Rockwood, MI 48173 Frost Dates
48173, near Rockwood, MI: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/27, about 242 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 176 days after the last spring frost.
Rockwood 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
Rockwood'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.
The actual range around Rockwood's last frost
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.
Rockwood against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 176 frost-free days, Rockwood places 26,467 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MI, it ranks 120 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 48173: local microclimates, on what one yard in Rockwood can differ from the 48173 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Rockwood's frost date answer different questions.