Gallup, NM 86540 Frost Dates
86540, near Gallup, NM: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/06, roughly 251 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/08, roughly 153 days after the last spring frost.
Gallup sits in USDA Zone 6b (-5 to 0°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
Gallup's growing season runs out in roughly 6 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
The actual range around Gallup's last frost
05/06 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/22 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/31 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Gallup against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 153 frost-free days, Gallup places 34,484 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NM, it ranks 263 of 427.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 86540: the frost range, on how to read the range around Gallup's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Gallup can differ from the 86540 normal.