Hometown, IL 60456 Frost Dates
Hometown, IL: when does the frost end?
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/10, about 225 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/01, roughly 203 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 Hometown, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 9 weeks until Hometown's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
Why 04/10 isn't a guarantee
04/10 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/30 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/26 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Hometown against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 203 frost-free days, Hometown places 16,914 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 165 of 1,548.
Learn more
Before leaning on 60456's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Hometown can differ from the 60456 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 6a and Hometown's frost date answer different questions.