Sacramento, CA 95817 Frost Dates
Sacramento, CA: when does the frost end?
Around 01/12 is the usual last spring frost, about 137 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 12/16, roughly 341 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 Sacramento, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 16 weeks until Sacramento's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
Why 01/12 isn't a guarantee
01/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/08 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 12/18 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Sacramento against the rest of the dataset
About 341 days separate Sacramento's last and first frost, putting it 2,569 of 40,283 ZIP codes nationally. Within CA, it ranks 1,127 of 2,555.
Learn more
Before leaning on 95817's figures: local microclimates explains what one yard in Sacramento can differ from the 95817 normal, while zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 9b and Sacramento's frost date answer different questions.