Park Ridge, IL 60068 Frost Dates
60068, near Park Ridge, IL: the frost window
Around 04/16 is the usual last spring frost, about 231 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/28, roughly 193 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Park Ridge, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Park Ridge's growing season runs out in roughly 9 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/16 isn't a guarantee
04/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/03 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Park Ridge against the rest of the dataset
About 193 days separate Park Ridge's last and first frost, putting it 19,730 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IL, it ranks 372 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 60068: local microclimates, on what one yard in Park Ridge can differ from the 60068 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Park Ridge's frost date answer different questions.