Grafton, WI 53024 Frost Dates
53024, near Grafton, WI: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/23, roughly 238 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/24, roughly 182 days after the last spring frost.
Grafton sits in USDA Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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
Grafton's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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
04/23 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 05/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Grafton against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 182 frost-free days, Grafton places 24,099 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within WI, it ranks 27 of 860.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 53024: the frost range, on how to read the range around Grafton's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Grafton can differ from the 53024 normal.