New Orleans, LA 70176 Frost Dates
New Orleans, LA: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 02/10, roughly 166 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/17, roughly 309 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 9b (25 to 30°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 New Orleans, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 16 weeks until New Orleans's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
Why 02/10 isn't a guarantee
02/10 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/08 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
New Orleans against the rest of the dataset
About 309 days separate New Orleans's last and first frost, putting it 3,619 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within LA, it ranks 113 of 710.
Learn more
Before leaning on 70176's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in New Orleans can differ from the 70176 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 9b and New Orleans's frost date answer different questions.