Rice, MN 56367 Frost Dates
56367, near Rice, MN: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/10, roughly 255 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/29, roughly 140 days after the last spring frost.
Rice sits in USDA Zone 4a (-30 to -25°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
Rice'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
05/10 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/30 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/22 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Rice against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 140 frost-free days, Rice places 37,059 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within MN, it ranks 738 of 943.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 56367: local microclimates, on what one yard in Rice can differ from the 56367 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 4a and Rice's frost date answer different questions.