El Paso, TX 79978 Frost Dates
79978, near El Paso, TX: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/02, roughly 186 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/20, roughly 261 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts El Paso in Zone 8b (15 to 20°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
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.
The actual range around El Paso's last frost
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
At roughly 261 frost-free days, El Paso places 6,265 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within TX, it ranks 1,170 of 2,558.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 79978: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and El Paso's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around El Paso's dates instead of trusting one.