Crooks, SD 57117 Frost Dates
57117, near Crooks, SD: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/01, about 246 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/06, roughly 157 days after the last spring frost.
Crooks sits in USDA Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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
Crooks'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.
The actual range around Crooks's last frost
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Crooks against the rest of the dataset
Crooks's growing season runs about 157 days, ranking 33,360 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within SD, it ranks 72 of 378.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 57117: the frost range, on how to read the range around Crooks's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Crooks can differ from the 57117 normal.