Skokie, IL 60077 Frost Dates
60077, near Skokie, IL: the frost window
Around 04/26 is the usual last spring frost, about 241 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 176 days after the last spring frost.
Skokie sits in USDA Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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
Skokie's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/11 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Skokie against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 176 frost-free days, Skokie places 26,348 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 1,150 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 60077: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Skokie's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Skokie's dates instead of trusting one.