Santa Barbara, CA 93109 Frost Dates
93109, near Santa Barbara, CA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 01/13, about 138 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 01/06, roughly 365 days after the last spring frost.
Santa Barbara 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
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.
The actual range around Santa Barbara's last frost
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
About 365 days separate Santa Barbara's last and first frost, putting it 602 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CA, it ranks 272 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 93109: local microclimates, on what one yard in Santa Barbara can differ from the 93109 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 10b and Santa Barbara's frost date answer different questions.