Elephant Butte, NM 87935 Frost Dates
Elephant Butte, NM: when does the frost end?
Around 03/22 is the usual last spring frost, about 206 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/09, roughly 230 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Elephant Butte in Zone 8a (10 to 15°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's forecast.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 10 weeks until Elephant Butte's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
How much risk comes with planting early here
03/22 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/04 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/10 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Elephant Butte against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 230 frost-free days, Elephant Butte places 10,429 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NM, it ranks 36 of 427.
Learn more
Before leaning on 87935's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Elephant Butte can differ from the 87935 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 8a and Elephant Butte's frost date answer different questions.