Lake Charles, LA 70632 Frost Dates
70632, near Lake Charles, LA: the frost window
Around 02/02 is the usual last spring frost, about 158 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/23, roughly 323 days after the last spring frost.
Lake Charles sits in USDA Zone 9b (25 to 30°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
Lake Charles's growing season runs out in roughly 17 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 02/02 isn't a guarantee
02/02 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lake Charles against the rest of the dataset
Lake Charles's growing season runs about 323 days, ranking 3,253 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within LA, it ranks 55 of 710.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 70632: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9b and Lake Charles's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Lake Charles's dates instead of trusting one.