Fountain Lake, AR 71909 Frost Dates
71909, near Fountain Lake, AR: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/19, roughly 203 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/13, roughly 239 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8a (10 to 15°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 Fountain Lake, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Fountain Lake'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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
03/19 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/07 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Fountain Lake against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 239 frost-free days, Fountain Lake places 8,874 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AR, it ranks 100 of 687.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 71909: the frost range, on how to read the range around Fountain Lake's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Fountain Lake can differ from the 71909 normal.