Houston, TX 77238 Frost Dates
77238, near Houston, TX: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 02/13, about 169 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/09, roughly 300 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 9b (25 to 30°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 Houston, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Houston's growing season runs out in roughly 15 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
02/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Houston against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 300 frost-free days, Houston places 4,025 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TX, it ranks 357 of 2,558.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 77238: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9b and Houston's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Houston's dates instead of trusting one.