New Salem, IL 62357 Frost Dates
New Salem, IL: when does the frost end?
Around 04/14 is the usual last spring frost, about 229 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 189 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 New Salem, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 8 weeks until New Salem's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around New Salem's last frost
04/14 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/31 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/30 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
New Salem against the rest of the dataset
New Salem's growing season runs about 189 days, ranking 21,764 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IL, it ranks 657 of 1,548.
Learn more
Before leaning on 62357's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in New Salem can differ from the 62357 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 6a and New Salem's frost date answer different questions.