Decatur, IL 62525 Frost Dates
Decatur, 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 10/24, roughly 192 days after the last spring frost.
Decatur 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
With roughly 8 weeks until Decatur's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
04/14 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Decatur against the rest of the dataset
About 192 days separate Decatur's last and first frost, putting it 20,144 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within IL, it ranks 419 of 1,548.
Learn more
Before leaning on 62525's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Decatur can differ from the 62525 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 6a and Decatur's frost date answer different questions.