Elm Creek, NE 68861 Frost Dates
68861, near Elm Creek, NE: the frost window
Around 04/30 is the usual last spring frost, about 245 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/10, roughly 162 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 Elm Creek, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Elm Creek'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
04/30 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Elm Creek against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 162 frost-free days, Elm Creek places 31,801 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NE, it ranks 356 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 68861: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Elm Creek's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Elm Creek's dates instead of trusting one.