Forest Hill, LA 71430 Frost Dates
71430, near Forest Hill, LA: the frost window
Around 03/01 is the usual last spring frost, about 185 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/22, roughly 267 days after the last spring frost.
Forest Hill 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
Forest Hill's growing season runs out in roughly 12 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 03/01 isn't a guarantee
03/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/22 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Forest Hill against the rest of the dataset
About 267 days separate Forest Hill's last and first frost, putting it 5,889 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within LA, it ranks 457 of 710.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 71430: local microclimates, on what one yard in Forest Hill can differ from the 71430 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9a and Forest Hill's frost date answer different questions.