St. Cloud, MN 56301 Frost Dates
St. Cloud, MN: when does the frost end?
Around 05/07 is the usual last spring frost, about 252 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/30, roughly 144 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 4b (-25 to -20°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 St. Cloud, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 5 weeks until St. Cloud's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
05/07 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/24 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/23 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
St. Cloud against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 144 frost-free days, St. Cloud places 36,323 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MN, it ranks 644 of 943.
Learn more
Before leaning on 56301's figures: the frost range explains how to read the range around St. Cloud's dates instead of trusting one, while local microclimates explains what one yard in St. Cloud can differ from the 56301 normal.