Saugatuck, MI 49453 Frost Dates
49453, near Saugatuck, MI: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/28, roughly 243 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 175 days after the last spring frost.
Saugatuck sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Saugatuck'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.
Why 04/28 isn't a guarantee
04/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/13 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Saugatuck against the rest of the dataset
About 175 days separate Saugatuck's last and first frost, putting it 27,104 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MI, it ranks 159 of 1,153.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 49453: local microclimates, on what one yard in Saugatuck can differ from the 49453 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6b and Saugatuck's frost date answer different questions.