El Paso, TX 79901 Frost Dates
79901, near El Paso, TX: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/02, about 186 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/20, roughly 261 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 El Paso, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
El Paso's growing season runs out in roughly 12 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 03/02 isn't a guarantee
03/02 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/19 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
El Paso against the rest of the dataset
About 261 days separate El Paso's last and first frost, putting it 6,250 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within TX, it ranks 1,155 of 2,558.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 79901: local microclimates, on what one yard in El Paso can differ from the 79901 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and El Paso's frost date answer different questions.