El Dorado, AR 71731 Frost Dates
71731, near El Dorado, AR: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/18, about 202 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/07, roughly 235 days after the last spring frost.
El Dorado 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
El Dorado's growing season runs out in roughly 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 03/18 isn't a guarantee
03/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/28 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/06 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
El Dorado against the rest of the dataset
About 235 days separate El Dorado's last and first frost, putting it 9,568 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within AR, it ranks 137 of 687.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 71731: local microclimates, on what one yard in El Dorado can differ from the 71731 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and El Dorado's frost date answer different questions.