Wheaton, IL 60132 Frost Dates
60132, near Wheaton, IL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/27, roughly 242 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/17, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.
Wheaton sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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
Wheaton's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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
04/27 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 05/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Wheaton against the rest of the dataset
About 173 days separate Wheaton's last and first frost, putting it 27,754 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IL, it ranks 1,286 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 60132: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Wheaton's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Wheaton's dates instead of trusting one.