Nicollet, MN 56074 Frost Dates
56074, near Nicollet, MN: the frost window
Around 05/02 is the usual last spring frost, about 247 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/07, roughly 157 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 Nicollet, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Nicollet'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.
The actual range around Nicollet's last frost
05/02 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/17 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Nicollet against the rest of the dataset
About 157 days separate Nicollet's last and first frost, putting it 33,378 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within MN, it ranks 304 of 943.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 56074: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Nicollet's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Nicollet's dates instead of trusting one.