Nelsonville, WI 54458 Frost Dates
54458, near Nelsonville, WI: the frost window
Around 05/04 is the usual last spring frost, about 249 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/07, roughly 155 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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 Nelsonville, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Nelsonville's growing season runs out in roughly 6 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 05/04 isn't a guarantee
05/04 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/22 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/20 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Nelsonville against the rest of the dataset
About 155 days separate Nelsonville's last and first frost, putting it 34,165 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within WI, it ranks 452 of 860.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 54458: local microclimates, on what one yard in Nelsonville can differ from the 54458 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Nelsonville's frost date answer different questions.