Santa Maria, CA 93456 Frost Dates
93456, near Santa Maria, CA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 02/04, about 160 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/04, roughly 301 days after the last spring frost.
The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map puts Santa Maria in Zone 9b (25 to 30°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
Santa Maria's growing season runs out in roughly 14 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 Maria's last frost
02/04 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/31 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/27 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Santa Maria against the rest of the dataset
About 301 days separate Santa Maria's last and first frost, putting it 3,891 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CA, it ranks 1,615 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 93456: the frost range, on how to read the range around Santa Maria's dates instead of trusting one, and local microclimates, on what one yard in Santa Maria can differ from the 93456 normal.