Maquoketa, IA 52060 Frost Dates
Maquoketa, IA: when does the frost end?
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/25, about 240 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/14, roughly 171 days after the last spring frost.
Maquoketa sits in USDA Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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
With roughly 7 weeks until Maquoketa's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/25 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/11 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Maquoketa against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 171 frost-free days, Maquoketa places 28,627 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IA, it ranks 284 of 1,042.
Learn more
Before leaning on 52060's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5a and Maquoketa's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Maquoketa's dates instead of trusting one.