Mitchell, NE 69357 Frost Dates
69357, near Mitchell, NE: the frost window
Around 05/07 is the usual last spring frost, about 252 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/02, roughly 147 days after the last spring frost.
Mitchell 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
Mitchell'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.
The actual range around Mitchell's last frost
05/07 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/26 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/21 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Mitchell against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 147 frost-free days, Mitchell places 35,928 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NE, it ranks 543 of 605.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 69357: local microclimates, on what one yard in Mitchell can differ from the 69357 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5a and Mitchell's frost date answer different questions.