Lansing, MI 48917 Frost Dates
48917, near Lansing, MI: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/01, roughly 246 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/13, roughly 162 days after the last spring frost.
Lansing 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
Lansing's growing season runs out in roughly 7 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 05/01 isn't a guarantee
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lansing against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 162 frost-free days, Lansing places 31,566 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MI, it ranks 529 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 48917: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Lansing's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Lansing's dates instead of trusting one.