Bay City, MI 48708 Frost Dates
48708, near Bay City, 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 173 days after the last spring frost.
Bay City sits in USDA Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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
Bay City'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 Bay City's last frost
04/27 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Bay City against the rest of the dataset
About 173 days separate Bay City's last and first frost, putting it 27,785 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MI, it ranks 210 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 48708: the frost range, on how to read the range around Bay City's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Bay City can differ from the 48708 normal.