Aurora, SD 57002 Frost Dates
Aurora, SD: when does the frost end?
Around 05/06 is the usual last spring frost, about 251 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/01, roughly 145 days after the last spring frost.
Aurora 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
With roughly 5 weeks until Aurora's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Aurora's last frost
05/06 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/25 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.
Aurora against the rest of the dataset
About 145 days separate Aurora's last and first frost, putting it 36,231 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within SD, it ranks 234 of 378.
Learn more
Before leaning on 57002's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Aurora can differ from the 57002 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 4b and Aurora's frost date answer different questions.