Cave Creek, AZ 85331 Frost Dates
85331, near Cave Creek, AZ: the frost window
Around 02/04 is the usual last spring frost, about 160 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/16, roughly 313 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 Cave Creek, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Cave Creek'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.
Why 02/04 isn't a guarantee
02/04 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/03 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.
Cave Creek against the rest of the dataset
Cave Creek's growing season runs about 313 days, ranking 3,448 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within AZ, it ranks 220 of 506.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 85331: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9b and Cave Creek's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Cave Creek's dates instead of trusting one.