FrostDateCheck

Cordele, GA 31010 Frost Dates

31010, near Cordele, GA: the frost window

Zone 8b

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/13, roughly 197 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/14, roughly 248 days after the last spring frost.

Cordele sits in USDA Zone 8b (15 to 20°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

Cordele's growing season runs out in roughly 11 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

03/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/20 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/31 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Cordele against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 248 frost-free days, Cordele places 7,688 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within GA, it ranks 299 of 921.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 31010: local microclimates, on what one yard in Cordele can differ from the 31010 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Cordele's frost date answer different questions.