FrostDateCheck

Alamogordo, NM 88342 Frost Dates

Alamogordo, NM: when does the frost end?

Zone 8a

Around 03/24 is the usual last spring frost, about 208 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/11, roughly 230 days after the last spring frost.

Zone 8a (10 to 15°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 Alamogordo, not a forecast for this year.

Stretching the season past the first frost

With roughly 11 weeks until Alamogordo'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

03/24 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/27 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.

Alamogordo against the rest of the dataset

At roughly 230 frost-free days, Alamogordo places 10,324 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NM, it ranks 29 of 427.

Learn more

Before leaning on 88342's figures: the frost range explains how to read the range around Alamogordo's dates instead of trusting one, while local microclimates explains what one yard in Alamogordo can differ from the 88342 normal.