Bayou La Batre, AL 36523 Frost Dates
36523, near Bayou La Batre, AL: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/13, about 197 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/24, 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 Bayou La Batre, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Bayou La Batre'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.
Why 03/13 isn't a guarantee
03/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/18 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.
Bayou La Batre against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 255 frost-free days, Bayou La Batre places 6,942 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AL, it ranks 167 of 809.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 36523: local microclimates, on what one yard in Bayou La Batre can differ from the 36523 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9a and Bayou La Batre's frost date answer different questions.