Poplar Grove, IL 61065 Frost Dates
61065, near Poplar Grove, IL: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/01, about 246 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 162 days after the last spring frost.
Poplar Grove 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
Poplar Grove'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
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/17 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Poplar Grove against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 162 frost-free days, Poplar Grove places 31,712 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 1,537 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61065: local microclimates, on what one yard in Poplar Grove can differ from the 61065 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Poplar Grove's frost date answer different questions.