Sterling Heights, MI 48312 Frost Dates
48312, near Sterling Heights, MI: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/24, roughly 174 days after the last spring frost.
Sterling Heights 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
Sterling Heights'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 04/30 isn't a guarantee
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Sterling Heights against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 174 frost-free days, Sterling Heights places 27,317 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MI, it ranks 163 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 48312: the frost range, on how to read the range around Sterling Heights's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Sterling Heights can differ from the 48312 normal.