Dove Creek, CO 81320 Frost Dates
81320, near Dove Creek, CO: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/11, roughly 256 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/12, roughly 152 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Dove Creek in Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Dove Creek'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 Dove Creek's last frost
05/11 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/29 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/25 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Dove Creek against the rest of the dataset
About 152 days separate Dove Creek's last and first frost, putting it 34,846 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CO, it ranks 295 of 624.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 81320: the frost range, on how to read the range around Dove Creek's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Dove Creek can differ from the 81320 normal.