Monroe Center, IL 61052 Frost Dates
61052, near Monroe Center, IL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/24, roughly 239 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/17, roughly 174 days after the last spring frost.
Monroe Center 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
Monroe Center'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
04/24 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 05/08 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Monroe Center against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 174 frost-free days, Monroe Center places 27,602 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 1,268 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61052: the frost range, on how to read the range around Monroe Center's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Monroe Center can differ from the 61052 normal.