Tampa, FL 33686 Frost Dates
33686, near Tampa, FL: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 01/20, roughly 145 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 01/12, roughly 365 days after the last spring frost.
Tampa sits in USDA Zone 10a (30 to 35°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
Tampa's growing season runs out in roughly 20 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
01/20 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/27 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Tampa against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 365 frost-free days, Tampa places 99 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within FL, it ranks 61 of 1,609.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 33686: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 10a and Tampa's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Tampa's dates instead of trusting one.