FrostDateCheck

Irvine, CA 92885 Frost Dates

92885, near Irvine, CA: the frost window

Zone 10a

Around 01/05 is the usual last spring frost, about 130 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/25, roughly 365 days after the last spring frost.

The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Irvine in Zone 10a (30 to 35°F average annual minimum); frost dates are NOAA's 1991-2020 station normal, not this year's 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.

The actual range around Irvine's last frost

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

At roughly 365 frost-free days, Irvine places 296 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within CA, it ranks 91 of 2,555.

Learn more

Two guides worth reading on 92885: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 10a and Irvine's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Irvine's dates instead of trusting one.