South Bend, WA 98641 Frost Dates
98641, near South Bend, WA: the frost window
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/06, roughly 221 days out. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/26, roughly 200 days after the last spring frost.
South Bend 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
South Bend's growing season runs out in roughly 8 weeks — a cold frame or greenhouse kit is the usual way to keep cool-weather crops going past the first frost.
Why 04/06 isn't a guarantee
04/06 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 03/16 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 04/28 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
South Bend against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 200 frost-free days, South Bend places 17,821 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within WA, it ranks 321 of 700.
Learn more
Two guides worth reading on 98641: local microclimates, on what one yard in South Bend can differ from the 98641 normal, and zone vs. frost date, on why Zone 9a and South Bend's frost date answer different questions.