Mission Hill, SD 57046 Frost Dates
57046, near Mission Hill, SD: the frost window
Around 04/27 is the usual last spring frost, about 242 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/11, roughly 164 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 Mission Hill, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Mission Hill'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/27 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/13 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Mission Hill against the rest of the dataset
Mission Hill's growing season runs about 164 days, ranking 31,219 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within SD, it ranks 17 of 378.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 57046: local microclimates, on what one yard in Mission Hill can differ from the 57046 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Mission Hill's frost date answer different questions.