Heartwell, NE 68945 Frost Dates
68945, near Heartwell, NE: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/26, roughly 241 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 168 days after the last spring frost.
Heartwell 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
Heartwell'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.
The actual range around Heartwell's last frost
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/08 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Heartwell against the rest of the dataset
About 168 days separate Heartwell's last and first frost, putting it 29,816 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NE, it ranks 274 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 68945: local microclimates, on what one yard in Heartwell can differ from the 68945 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Heartwell's frost date answer different questions.