Evanston, IL 60626 Frost Dates
60626, near Evanston, IL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/26, roughly 241 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 176 days after the last spring frost.
Evanston 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
Evanston'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.
Evanston against the rest of the dataset
Evanston's growing season runs about 176 days, ranking 26,344 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IL, it ranks 1,148 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 60626: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Evanston's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Evanston's dates instead of trusting one.