FrostDateCheck

Memphis, TN 38122 Frost Dates

38122, near Memphis, TN: the frost window

Zone 8a

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/29, roughly 213 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/05, roughly 223 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 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.

The actual range around Memphis's last frost

03/29 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/09 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.

Memphis against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 223 frost-free days, Memphis places 11,991 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TN, it ranks 89 of 770.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 38122: local microclimates, on what one yard in Memphis can differ from the 38122 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Memphis's frost date answer different questions.