Irvine, CA 92863 Frost Dates
92863, near Irvine, CA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 01/05, roughly 130 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/25, roughly 365 days after the last spring frost.
Irvine sits in USDA Zone 10b (35 to 40°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
Irvine's growing season runs out in roughly 17 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
01/05 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/02 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/14 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Irvine against the rest of the dataset
About 365 days separate Irvine's last and first frost, putting it 293 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CA, it ranks 88 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 92863: local microclimates, on what one yard in Irvine can differ from the 92863 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 10b and Irvine's frost date answer different questions.