Lafayette, LA 70503 Frost Dates
70503, near Lafayette, LA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 02/26, roughly 182 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/28, roughly 279 days after the last spring frost.
Lafayette sits in USDA Zone 9a (20 to 25°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
Lafayette'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 02/26 isn't a guarantee
02/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/29 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/20 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lafayette against the rest of the dataset
About 279 days separate Lafayette's last and first frost, putting it 4,857 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within LA, it ranks 247 of 710.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 70503: the frost range, on how to read the range around Lafayette's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Lafayette can differ from the 70503 normal.