Carter Lake, IA 68112 Frost Dates
Carter Lake, IA: when does the frost end?
Around 04/18 is the usual last spring frost, about 233 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/21, roughly 185 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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 Carter Lake, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 8 weeks until Carter Lake's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Carter Lake's last frost
04/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/05 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.
Carter Lake against the rest of the dataset
Carter Lake's growing season runs about 185 days, ranking 23,156 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within IA, it ranks 41 of 1,042.
Learn more
Before leaning on 68112's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and Carter Lake's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Carter Lake's dates instead of trusting one.