Surprise, NE 68667 Frost Dates
68667, near Surprise, NE: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/29, roughly 244 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/09, roughly 163 days after the last spring frost.
Surprise 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
Surprise's growing season runs out in roughly 6 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/29 isn't a guarantee
04/29 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Surprise against the rest of the dataset
About 163 days separate Surprise's last and first frost, putting it 31,557 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NE, it ranks 345 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 68667: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Surprise's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Surprise's dates instead of trusting one.