Benton, LA 71136 Frost Dates
71136, near Benton, LA: the frost window
Around 02/28 is the usual last spring frost, about 184 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/24, roughly 268 days after the last spring frost.
Benton sits in USDA Zone 8b (15 to 20°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
Benton'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.
The actual range around Benton's last frost
02/28 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/04 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Benton against the rest of the dataset
About 268 days separate Benton's last and first frost, putting it 5,782 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within LA, it ranks 390 of 710.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 71136: local microclimates, on what one yard in Benton can differ from the 71136 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Benton's frost date answer different questions.