Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM 87122 Frost Dates
87122, near Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, NM: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 04/21, about 236 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/23, roughly 184 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 7b (5 to 10°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 Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's growing season runs out in roughly 8 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
04/21 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/06 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/04 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Los Ranchos de Albuquerque against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 184 frost-free days, Los Ranchos de Albuquerque places 23,492 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NM, it ranks 174 of 427.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 87122: local microclimates, on what one yard in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque can differ from the 87122 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7b and Los Ranchos de Albuquerque's frost date answer different questions.