Milwaukee, WI 53216 Frost Dates
53216, near Milwaukee, WI: the frost window
Around 04/26 is the usual last spring frost, about 241 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/18, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Milwaukee, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Milwaukee'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.
The actual range around Milwaukee's last frost
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/12 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.
Milwaukee against the rest of the dataset
Milwaukee's growing season runs about 173 days, ranking 27,666 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within WI, it ranks 101 of 860.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 53216: the frost range, on how to read the range around Milwaukee's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Milwaukee can differ from the 53216 normal.