Waukesha, WI 53189 Frost Dates
Waukesha, WI: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/01, roughly 246 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/13, roughly 162 days after the last spring frost.
Waukesha sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Waukesha's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Waukesha's last frost
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Waukesha against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 162 frost-free days, Waukesha places 31,695 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within WI, it ranks 261 of 860.
Learn more
Before leaning on 53189's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Waukesha can differ from the 53189 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and Waukesha's frost date answer different questions.