Gurnee, IL 60031 Frost Dates
Gurnee, IL: when does the frost end?
Around 04/30 is the usual last spring frost, about 245 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/19, roughly 170 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Gurnee in Zone 6a (-10 to -5°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 7 weeks until Gurnee's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Gurnee's last frost
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/15 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.
Gurnee against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 170 frost-free days, Gurnee places 28,899 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 1,386 of 1,548.
Learn more
Before leaning on 60031's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Gurnee can differ from the 60031 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 6a and Gurnee's frost date answer different questions.