Tempe, AZ 85211 Frost Dates
85211, near Tempe, AZ: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 02/13, roughly 169 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/05, roughly 298 days after the last spring frost.
Tempe sits in USDA Zone 10a (30 to 35°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
Tempe's growing season runs out in roughly 14 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
02/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/12 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/09 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Tempe against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 298 frost-free days, Tempe places 4,193 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AZ, it ranks 264 of 506.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 85211: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 10a and Tempe's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Tempe's dates instead of trusting one.