Marne, IA 51552 Frost Dates
51552, near Marne, IA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/30, about 245 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/02, roughly 153 days after the last spring frost.
Marne 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
Marne'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.
The actual range around Marne's last frost
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 05/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Marne against the rest of the dataset
Marne's growing season runs about 153 days, ranking 34,654 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IA, it ranks 942 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 51552: local microclimates, on what one yard in Marne can differ from the 51552 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Marne's frost date answer different questions.