Muskegon Heights, MI 49444 Frost Dates
49444, near Muskegon Heights, MI: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 170 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Muskegon Heights in Zone 6b (-5 to 0°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Muskegon Heights'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/17 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.
Muskegon Heights against the rest of the dataset
About 170 days separate Muskegon Heights's last and first frost, putting it 28,945 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MI, it ranks 308 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 49444: the frost range, on how to read the range around Muskegon Heights's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Muskegon Heights can differ from the 49444 normal.