Mount Carroll, IL 61053 Frost Dates
61053, near Mount Carroll, IL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/02, roughly 247 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/07, roughly 154 days after the last spring frost.
Mount Carroll sits in USDA Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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
Mount Carroll's growing season runs out in roughly 6 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
05/02 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Mount Carroll against the rest of the dataset
Mount Carroll's growing season runs about 154 days, ranking 34,349 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IL, it ranks 1,546 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61053: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Mount Carroll's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Mount Carroll's dates instead of trusting one.