Memphis, TN 38104 Frost Dates
38104, near Memphis, TN: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/16, roughly 200 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/16, roughly 244 days after the last spring frost.
Memphis 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
Memphis'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
03/16 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/27 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Memphis against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 244 frost-free days, Memphis places 8,103 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TN, it ranks 9 of 770.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 38104: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Memphis's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Memphis's dates instead of trusting one.