North Loup, NE 68859 Frost Dates
68859, near North Loup, NE: the frost window
Around 05/05 is the usual last spring frost, about 250 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/03, roughly 150 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 North Loup, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
North Loup's growing season runs out in roughly 5 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
05/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/23 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
North Loup against the rest of the dataset
About 150 days separate North Loup's last and first frost, putting it 35,419 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NE, it ranks 518 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 68859: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and North Loup's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around North Loup's dates instead of trusting one.