Lead, SD 57732 Frost Dates
Lead, SD: when does the frost end?
Around 05/18 is the usual last spring frost, about 263 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 09/29, roughly 133 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 Lead, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 5 weeks until Lead's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Lead's last frost
05/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 05/05 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 06/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lead against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 133 frost-free days, Lead places 38,061 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within SD, it ranks 358 of 378.
Learn more
Before leaning on 57732's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5a and Lead's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Lead's dates instead of trusting one.