Grady, NM 88120 Frost Dates
88120, near Grady, NM: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/18, roughly 233 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/26, roughly 190 days after the last spring frost.
Grady sits in USDA Zone 7a (0 to 5°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
Grady'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
04/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Grady against the rest of the dataset
Grady's growing season runs about 190 days, ranking 21,352 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NM, it ranks 157 of 427.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 88120: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 7a and Grady's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Grady's dates instead of trusting one.