Sahuarita, AZ 85717 Frost Dates
85717, near Sahuarita, AZ: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/26, roughly 241 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/04, roughly 195 days after the last spring frost.
Sahuarita sits in USDA Zone 9b (25 to 30°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
Sahuarita'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 04/26 isn't a guarantee
04/26 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/01 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/17 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Sahuarita against the rest of the dataset
Sahuarita's growing season runs about 195 days, ranking 19,175 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within AZ, it ranks 400 of 506.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 85717: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9b and Sahuarita's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Sahuarita's dates instead of trusting one.