Lometa, TX 76853 Frost Dates
76853, near Lometa, TX: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/22, roughly 206 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/12, roughly 238 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 Lometa, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Lometa'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.
Why 03/22 isn't a guarantee
03/22 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Lometa against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 238 frost-free days, Lometa places 9,006 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TX, it ranks 1,989 of 2,558.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 76853: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Lometa's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Lometa's dates instead of trusting one.