Bushnell, IL 61422 Frost Dates
61422, near Bushnell, IL: the frost window
Around 04/17 is the usual last spring frost, about 232 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/22, roughly 185 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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 Bushnell, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Bushnell's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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 Bushnell's last frost
04/17 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/04 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/02 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Bushnell against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 185 frost-free days, Bushnell places 23,171 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 830 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61422: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Bushnell's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Bushnell's dates instead of trusting one.