No Frost In the Forecast - Late October 2026

Frost is how the gardening season ends.  It brings with it death.  And dormancy.  Another season in the books.  In some ways, it also brings relief.  Things slow down.  Stop growing.  And, I can shift into a 'closing up' mindset.   But, I can't do that until we get a frost. 

The furthest that the forecast looks out on Weather dot com is between now and Thursday, November 5th. That's two weeks out.  And, here, below is what it looks like:

What is notable?  

The lows.  

Look at them.  The lowest LOW listed between now and November 5th is 43 degrees.  That's 11 degrees ABOVE freezing.  

Now, I recognize that weather forecasts aren't set in stone, but let's (for now) operate under the assumption that this is close to accurate.  We won't see a frost for at least two weeks.

Note:  Parts of Northern Illinois had some frost earlier in October.  Here's a Tweet from the National Weather Service from last weekend:

Low temperatures near or slightly below freezing are expected early Sat AM across interior northern Illinois, mainly near and west of the Fox Valley and north of I-80. Some frost is possible too early Sun AM. Freeze warnings and frost advisories have been iss https://t.co/M2kVWrz9kg

— NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) October 16, 2026

But...here in DuPage County (Zone 6a/5b border), we didn't get that low.  No frost.

Over the years, I've posted about the first frost of Fall.  That signals the end of the growing season.  Things begin to shut down and go dormant.   

Last year, it was around October 25th when the frost arrived.  The more tropical things like Coleus died right away.  The Dahlias went down too.  

In 2024, it was mid-October.  I tried to save things with frost covers.  

I took at look at what the State Climatologist from the University of Illinois has to say about first frosts.  He has a post up that includes a number of maps that show the average first frost dates across a number of horizons including the "earliest", "1 in 10 years", "median", "9 in 10 years" and "latest".  

The earliest (I think....the maps are a little hard for me to interpret??) shows September 25th.  

The 1 in 10 years show October 4th.  

The median shows October 18th.  

The 9 in 10 years shows November 1st.  

And, the latest shows November 11th.  

I'm looking specifically at DuPage County in those maps.  We haven't had a frost yet.  And, we're not looking like one until after (at least) November 6th.  

That means, we're well past the "9 in 10 years" category that usually occurs by November 1st.  That means...that we're (right now) headed towards the 1 in 10 year outlier.  

Will we break the record on November 11th?  Not sure.  But, right now, I'm thinking we're getting two extra weeks of growing season.  That has some benefits with dahlias.  But, it also delays the cleanup/shutting down of things.  Including...digging out the dahlia tubers.  

Here's to a late-arriving first frost in 2026.  And, the extended growing season.