Leighton, AL 35646 Frost Dates
35646, near Leighton, AL: the frost window
Around 03/20 is the usual last spring frost, about 204 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/08, roughly 233 days after the last spring frost.
Leighton sits in USDA Zone 8a (10 to 15°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
Leighton's growing season runs out in roughly 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 03/20 isn't a guarantee
03/20 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 04/06 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Leighton against the rest of the dataset
About 233 days separate Leighton's last and first frost, putting it 9,956 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within AL, it ranks 449 of 809.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 35646: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Leighton's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Leighton's dates instead of trusting one.