Minonk, IL 61760 Frost Dates
61760, near Minonk, IL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/26, roughly 241 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/17, roughly 173 days after the last spring frost.
Minonk 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
Minonk's growing season runs out in roughly 7 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 Minonk's last frost
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.
Minonk against the rest of the dataset
About 173 days separate Minonk's last and first frost, putting it 27,941 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IL, it ranks 1,321 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61760: local microclimates, on what one yard in Minonk can differ from the 61760 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Minonk's frost date answer different questions.