FrostDateCheck

Galena, IL 61036 Frost Dates

Galena, IL: when does the frost end?

Zone 5a

Around 04/25 is the usual last spring frost, about 240 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/16, roughly 172 days after the last spring frost.

Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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 Galena, not a forecast for this year.

Stretching the season past the first frost

With roughly 7 weeks until Galena's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.

The actual range around Galena's last frost

04/25 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/10 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.

Galena against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 172 frost-free days, Galena places 28,300 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 1,342 of 1,548.

Learn more

Before leaning on 61036's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Galena can differ from the 61036 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5a and Galena's frost date answer different questions.