Birmingham, AL 35233 Frost Dates
35233, near Birmingham, AL: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/21, about 205 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/11, roughly 236 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8a (10 to 15°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 Birmingham, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Birmingham'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
03/21 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/28 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/08 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Birmingham against the rest of the dataset
About 236 days separate Birmingham's last and first frost, putting it 9,222 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within AL, it ranks 355 of 809.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 35233: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Birmingham's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Birmingham's dates instead of trusting one.