Paddock Lake, WI 53168 Frost Dates
53168, near Paddock Lake, WI: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/30, roughly 245 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/15, roughly 167 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 Paddock Lake, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Paddock Lake'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.
Why 04/30 isn't a guarantee
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Paddock Lake against the rest of the dataset
Paddock Lake's growing season runs about 167 days, ranking 29,993 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within WI, it ranks 163 of 860.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 53168: the frost range, on how to read the range around Paddock Lake's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Paddock Lake can differ from the 53168 normal.