Tolono, IL 61880 Frost Dates
61880, near Tolono, IL: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/19, about 234 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/17, roughly 180 days after the last spring frost.
Tolono sits in USDA Zone 6a (-10 to -5°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
Tolono'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/19 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/06 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/05 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Tolono against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 180 frost-free days, Tolono places 24,865 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within IL, it ranks 959 of 1,548.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 61880: local microclimates, on what one yard in Tolono can differ from the 61880 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 6a and Tolono's frost date answer different questions.