Taos Ski Valley, NM 87514 Frost Dates
87514, near Taos Ski Valley, NM: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 05/19, about 264 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/03, roughly 136 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 5b (-15 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 Taos Ski Valley, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Taos Ski Valley's growing season runs out in roughly 5 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
05/19 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 05/07 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.
Taos Ski Valley against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 136 frost-free days, Taos Ski Valley places 37,814 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NM, it ranks 348 of 427.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 87514: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 5b and Taos Ski Valley's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Taos Ski Valley's dates instead of trusting one.