Roscoe, IL 61073 Frost Dates
61073, near Roscoe, 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.
Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Roscoe, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Roscoe'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.
The actual range around Roscoe's last frost
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.
Roscoe against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 162 frost-free days, Roscoe places 31,686 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 1,531 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61073: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Roscoe's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Roscoe's dates instead of trusting one.