Dove Creek, CO 81324 Frost Dates
81324, 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.
Dove Creek sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
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.
How much risk comes with planting early here
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
At roughly 152 frost-free days, Dove Creek places 34,847 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within CO, it ranks 296 of 624.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 81324: 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 81324 normal.