Kalamazoo, MI 49003 Frost Dates
49003, near Kalamazoo, MI: the frost window
Around 04/29 is the usual last spring frost, about 244 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/20, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Kalamazoo, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Kalamazoo'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 Kalamazoo's last frost
04/29 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 05/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Kalamazoo against the rest of the dataset
Kalamazoo's growing season runs about 173 days, ranking 27,731 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within MI, it ranks 193 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 49003: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Kalamazoo's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Kalamazoo's dates instead of trusting one.