Broken Bow, NE 68822 Frost Dates
68822, near Broken Bow, NE: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/01, about 246 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/07, roughly 157 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 Broken Bow, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Broken Bow'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/17 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/15 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Broken Bow against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 157 frost-free days, Broken Bow places 33,316 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NE, it ranks 430 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 68822: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Broken Bow's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Broken Bow's dates instead of trusting one.