Las Cruces, NM 88002 Frost Dates
Las Cruces, NM: when does the frost end?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/12, roughly 196 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/13, roughly 241 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8b (15 to 20°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 Las Cruces, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 11 weeks until Las Cruces's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Las Cruces's last frost
03/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/23 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/02 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Las Cruces against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 241 frost-free days, Las Cruces places 8,499 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NM, it ranks 4 of 427.
Learn more
Before leaning on 88002's figures: the frost range explains how to read the range around Las Cruces's dates instead of trusting one, while local microclimates explains what one yard in Las Cruces can differ from the 88002 normal.