Pima, AZ 85536 Frost Dates
85536, near Pima, AZ: the frost window
Around 04/01 is the usual last spring frost, about 216 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/06, roughly 217 days after the last spring frost.
Pima sits in USDA Zone 8b (15 to 20°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
Pima's growing season runs out in roughly 10 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/01 isn't a guarantee
04/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Pima against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 217 frost-free days, Pima places 13,487 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within AZ, it ranks 364 of 506.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 85536: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Pima's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Pima's dates instead of trusting one.