Paynesville, MN 56362 Frost Dates
56362, near Paynesville, MN: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/04, roughly 249 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/04, roughly 152 days after the last spring frost.
Paynesville sits in USDA Zone 4b (-25 to -20°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Paynesville's growing season runs out in roughly 5 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
How much risk comes with planting early here
05/04 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/23 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Paynesville against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 152 frost-free days, Paynesville places 34,765 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MN, it ranks 442 of 943.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 56362: local microclimates, on what one yard in Paynesville can differ from the 56362 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 4b and Paynesville's frost date answer different questions.