Fort Walton Beach, FL 32548 Frost Dates
32548, near Fort Walton Beach, FL: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 02/05, about 161 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/28, roughly 321 days after the last spring frost.
Fort Walton Beach sits in USDA Zone 9a (20 to 25°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
Fort Walton Beach's growing season runs out in roughly 17 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
02/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/05 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Fort Walton Beach against the rest of the dataset
Fort Walton Beach's growing season runs about 321 days, ranking 3,291 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within FL, it ranks 1,226 of 1,609.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 32548: the frost range, on how to read the range around Fort Walton Beach's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Fort Walton Beach can differ from the 32548 normal.