FrostDateCheck

Houston, TX 77213 Frost Dates

When can you plant in Houston, TX?

Zone 9b

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 02/13, roughly 169 days out. The first fall frost typically arrives around 12/09, about 300 frost-free days later.

Houston sits in USDA Zone 9b (25 to 30°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.

What to do before the first frost

About 15 weeks of growing season left in Houston before the first fall frost — a cold frame or row cover can stretch harvest weeks past that date.

The actual range around Houston's last frost

02/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 01/12 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 03/12 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.

How Houston compares

At roughly 300 frost-free days, Houston places 4,002 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TX, it ranks 334 of 2,558.

Learn more

zone vs. frost date covers why Zone 9b and Houston's frost date answer different questions. the frost range covers how to read the range around Houston's dates instead of trusting one.