Dante, SD 57329 Frost Dates
57329, near Dante, SD: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/29, roughly 244 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/09, roughly 164 days after the last spring frost.
Dante 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
Dante'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
04/29 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Dante against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 164 frost-free days, Dante places 31,260 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within SD, it ranks 20 of 378.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 57329: local microclimates, on what one yard in Dante can differ from the 57329 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Dante's frost date answer different questions.