Sterling, MI 48610 Frost Dates
Sterling, MI: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/15, roughly 260 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/04, roughly 143 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Sterling, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 5 weeks until Sterling's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Sterling's last frost
05/15 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/29 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/29 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Sterling against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 143 frost-free days, Sterling places 36,602 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MI, it ranks 890 of 1,153.
Learn more
Before leaning on 48610's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and Sterling's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Sterling's dates instead of trusting one.