Minatare, NE 69356 Frost Dates
69356, near Minatare, NE: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/05, roughly 250 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/11, roughly 156 days after the last spring frost.
Minatare sits in USDA Zone 5a (-20 to -15°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
Minatare'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 Minatare's last frost
05/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/21 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/16 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Minatare against the rest of the dataset
About 156 days separate Minatare's last and first frost, putting it 33,759 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within NE, it ranks 457 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 69356: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Minatare's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Minatare's dates instead of trusting one.