La Crosse, WI 54601 Frost Dates
La Crosse, WI: when does the frost end?
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/27, about 242 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/13, roughly 167 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 La Crosse, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 7 weeks until La Crosse's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around La Crosse's last frost
04/27 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.
La Crosse against the rest of the dataset
About 167 days separate La Crosse's last and first frost, putting it 29,856 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within WI, it ranks 149 of 860.
Learn more
Before leaning on 54601's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5a and La Crosse's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around La Crosse's dates instead of trusting one.