Hancock, IA 51536 Frost Dates
51536, near Hancock, IA: the frost window
Around 04/23 is the usual last spring frost, about 238 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/14, roughly 174 days after the last spring frost.
Hancock sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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
Hancock'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.
The actual range around Hancock's last frost
04/23 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/05 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Hancock against the rest of the dataset
Hancock's growing season runs about 174 days, ranking 27,639 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IA, it ranks 205 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 51536: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Hancock's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Hancock's dates instead of trusting one.