Santa Barbara, CA 93105 Frost Dates
93105, near Santa Barbara, CA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 01/13, roughly 138 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 01/06, roughly 365 days after the last spring frost.
Santa Barbara sits in USDA Zone 10a (30 to 35°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
Santa Barbara's growing season runs out in roughly 19 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
01/13 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/24 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/12 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Santa Barbara against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 365 frost-free days, Santa Barbara places 600 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within CA, it ranks 270 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 93105: the frost range, on how to read the range around Santa Barbara's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Santa Barbara can differ from the 93105 normal.