Chowchilla, CA 93610 Frost Dates
93610, near Chowchilla, CA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 02/12, roughly 168 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/30, roughly 293 days after the last spring frost.
Chowchilla sits in USDA Zone 9a (20 to 25°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
Chowchilla'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.
Why 02/12 isn't a guarantee
02/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 01/06 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/17 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Chowchilla against the rest of the dataset
Chowchilla's growing season runs about 293 days, ranking 4,281 of 40,283 US ZIP codes measured here, longest to shortest. Within CA, it ranks 1,657 of 2,555.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 93610: local microclimates, on what one yard in Chowchilla can differ from the 93610 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9a and Chowchilla's frost date answer different questions.