Merino, CO 80722 Frost Dates
80722, near Merino, CO: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/10, roughly 255 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/06, roughly 147 days after the last spring frost.
Merino sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°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.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Merino's growing season runs out in roughly 6 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 Merino's last frost
05/10 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/28 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/22 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Merino against the rest of the dataset
About 147 days separate Merino's last and first frost, putting it 35,976 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CO, it ranks 357 of 624.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 80722: local microclimates, on what one yard in Merino can differ from the 80722 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Merino's frost date answer different questions.