Benton, LA 71006 Frost Dates
71006, near Benton, LA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/14, roughly 198 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/14, roughly 246 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8b (15 to 20°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 Benton, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Benton'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.
The actual range around Benton's last frost
03/14 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/22 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Benton against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 246 frost-free days, Benton places 7,931 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within LA, it ranks 622 of 710.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 71006: local microclimates, on what one yard in Benton can differ from the 71006 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Benton's frost date answer different questions.