Crooks, SD 57193 Frost Dates
57193, near Crooks, SD: the frost window
Around 05/01 is the usual last spring frost, about 246 days away. 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.
Why 05/01 isn't a guarantee
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
At roughly 157 frost-free days, Crooks places 33,362 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within SD, it ranks 74 of 378.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 57193: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Crooks's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Crooks's dates instead of trusting one.