FrostDateCheck

Sacramento, CA 95821 Frost Dates

Frost dates for Sacramento, CA, ZIP 95821

Zone 9b

Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 01/12, roughly 137 days out. The first fall frost typically arrives around 12/16, about 341 frost-free days later.

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.

What to do before the first frost

Zone 9b around Sacramento has about 16 weeks left before the first fall frost — that's the usual window to get a cold frame up if you want to keep harvesting past it.

How much risk comes with planting early here

01/12 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 02/08 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 12/18 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.

How Sacramento compares

At roughly 341 frost-free days, Sacramento places 2,572 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within CA, it ranks 1,130 of 2,555.

Learn more

zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 9b and Sacramento's frost date answer different questions, and the frost range explains how to read the range around Sacramento's dates instead of trusting one.