Fife, WA 98404 Frost Dates
98404, near Fife, WA: the frost window
The last spring frost here typically falls around 03/08, about 192 days from today. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 11/14, roughly 250 days after the last spring frost.
Zone 8b (15 to 20°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 Fife, not a forecast for this year.
Stretching the season past the first frost
Fife's growing season runs out in roughly 11 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
03/08 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 02/15 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 03/31 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Fife against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 250 frost-free days, Fife places 7,507 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within WA, it ranks 119 of 700.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 98404: local microclimates, on what one yard in Fife can differ from the 98404 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 8b and Fife's frost date answer different questions.