Cowarts, AL 36321 Frost Dates
36321, near Cowarts, AL: the frost window
Around 03/05 is the usual last spring frost, about 189 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/24, roughly 264 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 Cowarts, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Cowarts's growing season runs out in roughly 13 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
03/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/09 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/25 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Cowarts against the rest of the dataset
Cowarts's growing season runs about 264 days, ranking 6,076 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within AL, it ranks 101 of 809.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 36321: the frost range, on how to read the range around Cowarts's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Cowarts can differ from the 36321 normal.