Cloudcroft, NM 88311 Frost Dates
88311, near Cloudcroft, NM: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/18, roughly 263 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/01, roughly 134 days after the last spring frost.
Cloudcroft sits in USDA Zone 8a (10 to 15°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
Cloudcroft'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.
The actual range around Cloudcroft's last frost
05/18 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 06/01 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Cloudcroft against the rest of the dataset
Cloudcroft's growing season runs about 134 days, ranking 37,991 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within NM, it ranks 356 of 427.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 88311: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8a and Cloudcroft's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Cloudcroft's dates instead of trusting one.