Mount Auburn, IA 52313 Frost Dates
52313, near Mount Auburn, IA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/07, roughly 159 days after the last spring frost.
Mount Auburn 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
Mount Auburn's growing season runs out in roughly 6 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 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Mount Auburn against the rest of the dataset
About 159 days separate Mount Auburn's last and first frost, putting it 32,791 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 803 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 52313: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Mount Auburn's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Mount Auburn's dates instead of trusting one.