Ridgecrest, CA 93528 Frost Dates
93528, near Ridgecrest, CA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 03/19, roughly 203 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/25, roughly 251 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 9a (20 to 25°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 Ridgecrest, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Ridgecrest'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
03/19 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/20 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/13 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Ridgecrest against the rest of the dataset
About 251 days separate Ridgecrest's last and first frost, putting it 7,287 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CA, it ranks 2,082 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 93528: local microclimates, on what one yard in Ridgecrest can differ from the 93528 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9a and Ridgecrest's frost date answer different questions.