El Paso, IL 61738 Frost Dates
El Paso, IL: when does the frost end?
Around 04/26 is the usual last spring frost, about 241 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/17, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts El Paso in Zone 5b (-15 to -10°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 7 weeks until El Paso's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
Why 04/26 isn't a guarantee
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/11 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
El Paso against the rest of the dataset
About 173 days separate El Paso's last and first frost, putting it 27,917 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IL, it ranks 1,319 of 1,548.
Learn more
Before leaning on 61738's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in El Paso can differ from the 61738 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and El Paso's frost date answer different questions.