Santa Maria, CA 93458 Frost Dates
Santa Maria, CA: when does the frost end?
Around 02/04 is the usual last spring frost, about 160 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/13, roughly 315 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
With roughly 15 weeks until Santa Maria's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
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 03/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/29 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Santa Maria against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 315 frost-free days, Santa Maria places 3,403 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within CA, it ranks 1,418 of 2,555.
Learn more
Before leaning on 93458's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Santa Maria can differ from the 93458 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 9b and Santa Maria's frost date answer different questions.