Gila Bend, AZ 85321 Frost Dates
85321, near Gila Bend, AZ: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 01/10, roughly 135 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/21, roughly 347 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 9b (25 to 30°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Gila Bend, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Gila Bend's growing season runs out in roughly 16 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
01/10 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/11 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Gila Bend against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 347 frost-free days, Gila Bend places 2,416 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AZ, it ranks 78 of 506.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 85321: local microclimates, on what one yard in Gila Bend can differ from the 85321 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9b and Gila Bend's frost date answer different questions.