Alachua, FL 32616 Frost Dates
32616, near Alachua, FL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/13, roughly 197 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/22, roughly 255 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 9a (20 to 25°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Alachua, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Alachua's growing season runs out in roughly 12 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 Alachua's last frost
03/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/02 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Alachua against the rest of the dataset
About 255 days separate Alachua's last and first frost, putting it 6,911 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within FL, it ranks 1,570 of 1,609.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 32616: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9a and Alachua's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Alachua's dates instead of trusting one.