Taft, CA 93251 Frost Dates
93251, near Taft, CA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 02/09, roughly 165 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/26, roughly 289 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 9b (25 to 30°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 Taft, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Taft's growing season runs out in roughly 13 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
02/09 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/10 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/06 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Taft against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 289 frost-free days, Taft places 4,547 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within CA, it ranks 1,712 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 93251: zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9b and Taft's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range, on how to read the range around Taft's dates instead of trusting one.