Stanwood, MI 49346 Frost Dates
49346, near Stanwood, MI: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/13, about 258 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/02, roughly 142 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 Stanwood, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Stanwood's growing season runs out in roughly 5 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
How much risk comes with planting early here
05/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/28 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/28 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Stanwood against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 142 frost-free days, Stanwood places 36,825 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MI, it ranks 904 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 49346: local microclimates, on what one yard in Stanwood can differ from the 49346 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Stanwood's frost date answer different questions.