Milton, IA 52551 Frost Dates
52551, near Milton, IA: the frost window
Around 04/26 is the usual last spring frost, about 241 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/13, roughly 169 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5b (-15 to -10°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Milton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Milton'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/26 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 05/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Milton against the rest of the dataset
About 169 days separate Milton's last and first frost, putting it 29,579 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IA, it ranks 341 of 1,042.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 52551: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Milton's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Milton's dates instead of trusting one.